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TechnoratiWASHINGTON - Congress and the Bush administration reached tentative agreement early Sunday on a sweeping $700 billion rescue plan to take bad assets off the books of banks and other financial firms. The deal is expected to be put on paper in the course of the day and sent to legislators for debate and a vote later in the week.
![[Demonstrators protest the U.S. Congress' proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry in New York's Times Square September 27, 2008. The U.S. Congress embarked on a weekend mission to strike a deal on a proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry before stock markets open on Monday in an attempt to end the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
(Keith Bedford/Reuters)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/bailoutprotest0928.jpg "bailoutprotest0928.jpg")
The two sides were racing a self-imposed deadline to get a deal by 6 p.m. Eastern time before Asian financial markets opened for business. A deal was announced in the wee hours by tired, puffy-eyed lawmakers that had been working almost around the clock to reach accord.
As lawmakers neared the tentative deal, staff members had their phones confiscated to prevent leaks in what had become a heavily politicized negotiation. Lawmakers pledged to post a copy of the deal online later Sunday for an angry American public to take a look at the compromise ahead of a congressional vote.
A tentative deal had been announced last Thursday, only to have House Republicans balk. The new compromise gives Democrats more restrictions on the pay of Wall Street execs and a taxpayer stake if the program actually makes money. Republicans tacked on a parallel insurance plan that can work as an alternative to taxpayer funding and killed provisions that would have let federal judges modify distressed mortgages.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have warned repeatedly that absent an urgent response, credit markets could collapse this week, punishing Wall Street and Main Street alike.
""The deal should go a long way to stabilizing financial markets and putting the financial system on what will be a long road to recovery," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of economic forecaster Moody's Economy.com.
Both Democrats and Republicans won language that they will trumpet on the campaign trail in weeks ahead, and the White House can breathe easier that a financial collapse may be averted, for now at least.
"Nobody got everything they wanted," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and one of the architects of the compromise, in a C-Span appearance Sunday morning.
Specifically, the proposed compromise envisions:
-- $700 billion in a taxpayer rescue of Wall Street, with $250 billion available immediately, another $100 billion upon report to Congress and the final $350 billion available only upon action by Congress.
-- Money will be used to buy mortgage-backed securities and other troubled assets, taking them from investment banks, commercial banks, smaller community banks, pension plans and even local governments.
-- Government can use its power as the owner of the troubled mortgage bonds to facilitate modifications for the mortgages themselves.
-- Bipartisan oversight commission will monitor the program. If after five years there is a net loss to the taxpayers, president will have to submit legislative proposals to recoup funds from beneficiaries.
-- Democrats won new, unspecified restrictions on CEO pay and executive compensations for participating companies.
-- Republicans won language creating a parallel insurance program that companies can choose instead of giving up their bad assets.
-- Creation of warrants, which allows any windfall coming to participating companies to be shared with the government, thus the taxpayers.
-- Actions by Treasury will be posted online in real time.
--Judicial review of Treasury's actions.
The presidential campaigns welcomed the compromise on the Sunday talk shows and took credit for it - even though Senate staffers say neither candidate was instrumental in getting a deal done.
In a statement, Democrat Barack Obama said it met the four core principles he laid out - independent oversight, treatment of taxpayers as investors, measures to keep homeowners in their homes, and rules to prevent rewarding Wall Street CEOs from cashing in on the rescue.
"While I look forward to reviewing the language of the legislation, it appears that the tentative deal embraces these principles," said Obama. He later echoed that in an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation.
Republican John McCain, speaking on ABC's "This Week," said, "This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with."
Staffers warned Sunday that while they are confident the deal will pass, it's no certainty. House Republicans must be convinced that taxpayers will not somehow wind up paying billions to executives. The real test of the package's strength is likely later Sunday when GOP leaders, who have been a thorn in their president's side, present it to members.
While House Republicans do not have enough votes to scuttle the package - Democrats have a majority of House seats - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she wants about 100 GOP members to vote for it. Not only would that give the plan a bipartisan sheen, it would also give the Democrats political protection.
Should the financial market meltdown worsen despite passage of the rescue plan, Pelosi does not want Republicans pointing fingers and saying the Democratic plan sought by the White House was responsible.
Rep. Frank acknowledged the vote is unlikely to be wildly in favor of the rescue plan.
"I think it will get a majority, but it won't get a huge majority because this is not an easy thing to do," said Frank. He noted that from the standpoint of a lawmaker, doing the right thing will not get an angry public off their back. "In politics, if you keep something from getting worse, you don't get a lot of credit for it."
David Lightman contributed to this report.
147 Comments so far
Show Allnever mind, don't want to be blahing.
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Nader says...
"Wake up Americans! Cut the crap and take over."
VOTE NADER/GONZALEZ 2008… You’ll be glad you did and so will I…
( KEM did you tell him to say that? :)
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Those who can't express opinions post ads.
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I copy and paste because I can't type well.
My posts reflect what I want to say.
I hope you like them.
If not, please to scroll right by.
I admit some posts I pay no attention to.
Nannie...
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Nannie
Most of your posts are simply advertisments for Nader. I mean that literally. I've no objection to the posts where you actually express an opinion, or even post Nader quotes that relate to the issue being discussed. But you frequently just post ads and that doesn't do anything but take up space.
So in your posts put more you, less ads.
Please.
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These are my opinions,I am the creator of these posts.
They express EXACTLY how I feel about the discussion being raised.
Please feel free to scroll on by.
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The bailout might create a few oscillations in our flatlined lending markets, but beyond that it will not work, since it reinforces and institutionalizes the fact that greed succeeds. It is not conservative or liberal ideology that is causing our "system" to crumble, it is corruption across the board. Right wing money people of my acquaintance are already rubbing their hands in anticipation of rebound profits. The good of the economy or the country does not even flicker across their brains. Where there is no honesty and no transparency, there is dry rot and dysfunction. Dawkins theory that a complex composed of tiny, selfish units, all looking out for #1, can function as an integrated whole is getting its field test today.
Having never been a fan of top dog status for our consumer society, I would like to see a descent to some saner level in the international pecking order and perhaps a culture less obsessed with the commodification and appropriation of everything material, intellectual and otherwise. If it is true that the pervasiveness of corruption is an inverse proportion to social progress (on the analogy of rust and sludge being absent from successful machinery), if what separates banana republics and Africa basket case countries from prosperous and functioning societies is a preponderance of individual responsibility, voluntary or enforced, then our little meltdown could be a good thing. If we find in coming years, as we find our revised place in the food chain, that we are not such bigshots after all, that is a healthy outcome. If we were poorer we might be more generous. If we were less powerful we might be wiser. If we were more ordinary we might lose our hubris. If the possibility of every farm kid becoming a fat cat someday were no longer part of the American dream, farm kids might have a crack at becoming viable human beings.
Economic collapse. Bring it on.
Hall sez: "House Republicans must be convinced that taxpayers will not somehow wind up paying billions to executives."
***
"Lizzie Borden must be convinced that the axe will not somehow wind up hacking parental units."
Blah, blah, blah. 134 comments so far and no one has stated the obvious answer to the problem:
Hang the politicians and Wall Streeters who did this in the public square. Start with Poppy, Bubba, Smirk, and work your way down.
Then start over. Hint: directions contained in documents known as the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution, and Federalist Papers.
The unstated assumption that banks and executives are entitled to secrecy regarding their finacials has to go.
This whole crisis began because lenders bypassed the credit checking that goes into giving a loan in order to pile up their big commissions, salaries and bonuses. That behavior could be described as irresponsible, greedy, narcissistic, delusional, fraudulent, criminal.
Now these same playiz and jokers are cutting up and playing the fool and asking US to give them hundreds of billions in loans without them having opened their books and given us a chance to look. They are not giving us any of their good holdings as collateral. In fact we don't even know the value of their good and bad holdings.
You gotta be crazy to agree to that.
Joe
You gotta be crazy to agree to that.
_________________________________
Crazy like a fox guarding a henhouse! [see my 6:43 post above]
Surely you're familiar with the concept of "honor among thieves"!
Canada had a subprime problem the same as the USA and solved it without a nickel being spent by the Gov or Tax payer
Look at informationclearinghouse article 20888
The Canadian solution
Please call your representative to tell them they should not pass this bill until there is time for a review, hearings and consideration of alternative approaches. They need to know we are watching them and potentially can vote them out.
An economy the size of ours does not fall apart in a few days. There is time before we go down this disastrous road. Remember "Time is running out!" before invasion of Iraq. It is the same damn thing.
We have to know our song well before we start singing.
Joe
At least Jesse James risked his life to rob the public.
While we all watched the bail out the Military has got about a trillion bucks from a bill passed on Wed that got no media coverage. The vote was 392 to 32 against
This bailout scam will not prevent a large number of bank failures, nor will it insure the stock market wil now gain it's former run away ride to prosperity. What will happen is, the dollar will continue to de-value and the threat of a deeper recession or a depression looms.
No matter what was done by our elected, we are scrwed and Bush did it. Wonder if it was plannned?
I know one thing, a trillion dollars spent in the proper places would insure we all had decent affordable heath care, every qualifed high school grad coud have an affordable college education, our decaying infastructures could be repaired and we could have clean renuable energy on line within eight yeatrs time and phase out all coal and nuclear power plants.
But we must protect our rich elete and give them some play money so that they can continue their monopoly games. And that is how the ball bounces here in America anymore.
~Kem~
I am to a point this is the take the money and run. It makes no difference who you vote for America is not controlled or run by true Americans anymore. By true Americans I mean people who work for the people. This huge power shift in America is influencing the world and other countries elections like Canada. Working more on the inside of an election my worst fears are coming true. The more I dig the more road blocks I am running into.
"Just then a policeman stepped up to me and asked us, said,
Please, hey, would we care to all get in line,
Get in line.
Well you know,
They asked us to stay for tea and have some fun,
Oh, oh-ho, he said that his friends would all drop by, oo-oo-oo-ooh.
"Why don't you take a good look at yourself and de-scribe what you see,
And baby, baby, baby, do you like it?
There you sit, sitting spare like a book on a shelf rustin'
Ahhh, not trying to fight it.
You really don't care if they're coming, oh, oh-ho,
I know that it's all a state of mind, oo-oo-oo-ooh.
"If you go down in the streets today, baby, you better,
You better open your eyes.
Folk down there really don't care, really don't care,
Don't care, really don't
Which, which way the pressure lies,
So I've decided what I'm gonna do now..." -- Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin
I'd like to try to clear up some misconceptions upon which many posters here are still acting and reacting:
1) People keep using the $700 billion dollar figure like it's some hard and fast limit. Sec. Treas. Paulsen pulled that number out of thin air. At least one prominent, accurate market watcher has said the liability could reach $5 Trillion. [Source: Bloomberg: Swiss investor Marc Faber] This liability permeates Amurkan and foreign banks.
2) We cannot rely on foreign creditors to continue to loan an over-leveraged bad risk like the U.S. hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars a year to pay for our open-ended wars and federal operating budget. From Reuters:
"Chinese regulators have asked domestic banks to stop lending to U.S. financial institutions in the interbank money markets to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. The China Banking Regulatory Commission's ban on interbank lending of all currencies applied to U.S. banks, but not to lenders from other countries, the report added."
The foreign creditor tit is being withdrawn just when Amurka's criminal bankers want it most. Our government, our Congressional Chairmen of the Ways & Means and Appropriations Committees, and far too many of our people will soon have to go begging. Bush's war-time tax cuts for the rich are still in place and McCain wants to make them permanent and ADD more tax cuts to them. Since we cannot yet beam in anti-matter revenue from another verse of the quantum polyverse, and the Hadron Collider has broken down along with our collective sanity, we're in much deeper doo-doo than has yet been officially allowed to come to light.
3) Team Bush, the Republicrumbs, Dimocrats and Big Media (via their think-tank thought police) are framing the crisis as a "liquidity" crisis. The richest one-tenth of one percent of Amurkans have been concentrating wealth (potential liquidity) in their elite class for almost 30 years now. THEY have plenty of available wealth to "surge" into the nation's financial plumbing--if they wanted to--and, thus, THEY control the liquidity. They also have $Trillions off-shore to live on while we are eating their dust for the next two decades. What we have, folks, is an INSOLVENCY crisis. Bad paper kept on two sets of books for too long and too over-leveraged by too many insolvent banks, investment and insurance firms. The GOP's "parallel insurance" scheme is special pleading to continue to keep the abyssal depth of it secret. This insolvency doesn't just affect big banks. Local banks have been exposed to an unknown degree as well.
4) Come Thanksgiving, no matter how badly your Republican relatives foam at the mouth blaming poor negroes, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac for the mortgage crisis 'cause Rush told 'em so, there is no way in hell that a country about to go into collective economic cold turkey from years of off-shoring its industrial economic base; creating a false economy based on artificially low interest rates; deregulatory speculation; tax cuts for the super-rich during war-time, and depending on dubious foreign creditors for our imperial operating money is going to solve anything with more tax cuts for the upper-middle- and upper-class. Obama's prattle about giving people who make less than $200K to $250K tax cuts will evaporate next year as fast as McCain's even more insane "economic plan" already has.
5) I've given up expecting any better sense from Amurka or the vast majority of Amurkans. Here in my metropolis local TV news is filled with stories about the police begging the lemmings to please stop making false 911 emergency calls because they've run out of gasoline due to the shortages. Like the effing police are going to fuel up and send out a police car for every numb-nut who hasn't woken up and smelled the dying empire odor yet. These lemmings complain to their Republican governor to no avail and are astonished! They are too stupid to google a toll-free number to the DC Capitol switchboard. Far too stupid to organize. When the food riots start next year I hope and pray I'm in a saner country. I'm ready for Scottie to beam my middle-aged butt out of here.
Quite a few posts point out that a huge majority of americans are against this bailout and politicians should start listening to us. But why should they? THERE ARE NEVER ANY CONSEQUENCES FOR ANY OF THEIR ACTIONS! They get re-elected no matter what they do! Stop voting for the duopoly if you truly want real progress and change in the U.S.!
How it is possible for the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and the Federal Reserve Bank that it created, to be constitutional. Ask your representative why this private banking cartel is allowed to reap trillions of dollars in profits without paying taxes. Insist on an answer.
In reality, "the FED act" created a private, for profit, central banking corporation owned by a cartel of private banks. Who owns the FED? The Rothschilds of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Moses Seif of Italy; Kuhn, Loeb and Warburg of Germany; and the Lehman Brothers, Goldman, Sachs and the Rockefeller families of New York.
Thomas Jefferson said, "If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
The myth that the Democratic Party represents a “lesser evil” to the Republicans, let alone a “party of the people,” is being shattered by its emergence as the most servile defender of the interests of the financial oligarchy.
Both candidates of the two major political parties, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, signaled their support for the bailout bill on Sunday. They echoed the line of President Bush, who said in his weekly radio address on Saturday, “The rescue effort we’re negotiating is not aimed at Wall Street; it is aimed at your street.”
read more: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/bail-s29.shtml
Not even a dime's worth of differnce. Vote 3rd party!~
"Not even a dime's worth of differnce."
I agree with you. its apparent the democracts are weak. very weak. but i think its a little more than a dime's worth of difference, perhaps a quarter. so i will vote obama/ biden. i don't want a right wing extremist and airhead in the vice presidency. politics in this case is a compromise.
Funny little youtube from votenader.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WiE6MnmCM
Outstanding video! Hey you gotta watch this and it's short.
Folks, you gotta love it: did you ever think that banks would rob people.Like the Willie Sutton quote when he was asked why he robs banks: " because that is where the money is ".
For what is the crime of burglarizing a bank, compared with the crime of building one? --Bertolt Brecht
Enough is enough
End Republican Rule
Why is it that the state will only take ownership of capitalism's trash? Why doesn't the state invest in factories to keep quality jobs creating quality products here in the U.S.? Is there anyone out there who can honestly say that a Chinese or Mexican-made appliance is superior in quality to the ones we used to make in the U.S.A.? If you're going to spend $700 billion on a bailout of the economy, wouldn't it make sense to put that money into laying the groundwork for an economic revival instead of sticking a $700 billion Band-Aid on a gaping wound? Am I the only one who thinks this way?
True true true. I still cherish my Swingline Stapler from before factory moved from New York to China. It's a sturdy little thing.
The US capitalists have lost their industrial creativity except in the field of software. The capitalists have no loyalty or patriotism. They go where they can make money and then use the US taxpayer as a source of cash to pay for their mistakes and for their military escapades.
So they no longer need us to be educated or employed. They can get skilled workers in Asia. They can allow unskilled and undocumented workers into the country in droves and keep them in a state of fear and servitude by threat of arrest.
After years of them laying the groundwork through subtly destroying unions, not so subtly getting rid of Constitutional rights, confusing the public through an owned press, indebting the country to China through criminal wars and irresponsible spending on contracts, we are now witnessing the coup de grace: the biggest one time transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of the world.
We are well on our way to becoming a third world country.
Joe
Baraka
This hoax of a 700 billion bailout is being pushed down our throats by the congress that no longer represents the people. It has all been eloquently said by the previous posts. The media is not reporting the outrage that this business is causing, Just like they sold us the war in Iraq with half truths and an unwillingness to report the truth there is a public outrage over this obvious theft of the public treasury by the wealthy, using a system designed to fleece the people. The press kept painting a rosy picture of the financial system right up to the moment it collapsed by pushing the lies about its soundness just as they did in selling Iraq until it could no longer be hidden from view.
Collusion among the wealthy plutocrats that own the media and the corporations that feed on human effort through the financial system that is designed to move money ( the wealth of the nation) from the many to the few. Let this system collapse if you don't intend to fix it. to hell with the mortgages and the loans - let them exchange the loans for equity in their own corporations and those that can't make it should fail but we the people didn't do this, they (the financiers) did it and now let them pay the price for robbing the people. The wealthy made hundreds of billions of dollars in the last 3 years alone; let them save the banks. Protect the government treasury don't pass this bill or there will be a revolution. Indict Bush and fire Paulson. Restore the protection of the bankruptcy laws that was taken away from the people by the Republicans with the help of Joe Biden.
Don't vote for Obama if he continues to support this along with McCain. The election should become a revolution. It must stop now!
Perhaps you can think first before you emote?
"I do not understand how universal bankruptcy can do any good or bring us nearer to prosperity."- John Maynard Keynes
Real people that are working people are at risk. Since you have no understanding of economics and business economics you ought to look before you leap. Do you understand what it is like for unemployed families? Let's not make things worse for working people because you are angry with bankers. Remember revenge is best served cold.
Save your fight to make sure that every working family has a middle class wage; save your fight for the struggle to get universal health care that is free for everyone.
Enough is enough
End Republican Rule
Yes, but we can protect the working class from this storm with a lot less money. Mortgages in default or in danger of default total less than 130 billion. If the government purchased all of these mortgages and worked just a little with the homeowners, many of whom would be grateful for a low fixed-rate mortgage instead of an ARM, we'd be in much better shape. Much of that money would be recovered. We could also increase unemployment benefits for 18 to 24 months to attenuate for what some suggest could be a 7% unemployment rate without the bailout. Still, we are spending far far less than 700 billion.
What would FDR do?
"save your fight for the struggle to get universal health care that is free for everyone."
Not mutually exclusive. 700 billion would pretty much pay for that.
Email making the rounds:
I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.
Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in
a We Deserve It Dividend.
To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000
bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.
Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman
and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..
So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.
My plan is to give $425,0 00 to every person 18+ as a
We Deserve It Dividend.
Of course, it would NOT be tax free.
So let's assume a tax rate of 30%.
Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.
That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.
But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in t heir pocket.
A husband and wife has $595,000.00.
What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it'll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean or else
Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks
who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other compan y
that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.
If we're going to r e-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out
a puny $1000.00 economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.
If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!
As for AIG - liquidate it.
Sell off its parts.
Let American General go back to being American General.
Sell off the real estate.
Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.
Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.
Sure it's a crazy idea that can work.
But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!
How do you spell Economic Boom?
I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion
We Deserve It Dividend more than the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC .
And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.
Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
I support your trickle up plan.
Joe
Good idea, except for a little math error...
"So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00."
85,000,000,000 divided by 200,000,000 equals 425, not 425,000.
Something about the devil being in the details! Everybody gets $425.00. The scheme kind of does a John McCain at that point.
The brilliant light of truth and economic justice
Please run for office
Rather, the dim light of silliness and simple math mistake.
Dim bulb should run and hide... not run for office.
This election, it does not matter who you vote for, just do not vote for the incumbent. Time to show the polis who really runs this country.
WOW! How awesome! Everyone won!
-- Democrats won new, unspecified restrictions on CEO pay and executive compensations for participating companies.
-- Republicans won language creating a parallel insurance program that companies can choose instead of giving up their bad assets.
---We won the bill for the $700 billion taxpayer rescue of Wall Street!
Gee, I want to just pinch myself! I can't believe it!
The candidate with the best plan:
Ralph Nader
votenader.org
And call your member of Congress and Senate and tell them to vote NO!
Barack Obama was for single payer before he came out against it.
snydly
If we have a chance to vote again---this time and every time:
IF THEY'RE IN
VOTE THEM OUT
RETURN CONGRESS
TO THE PEOPLE
.
Nader can win....... The voters will decide.
Nader will change things.
Nader is our only hope.
Nader is the only choice.
Fight the Two-party system.
VOTE NADER 2008… You’ll be glad you did and so will I…
http://www.votenader.org/index.html
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I don't get it.
In a statement, Democrat Barack Obama said it met the four core principles he laid out - independent oversight, treatment of taxpayers as investors, measures to keep homeowners in their homes, and rules to prevent rewarding Wall Street CEOs from cashing in on the rescue.
However, according to this article which follows, Mortgage help for bankrupt homeowners dropped. What is going on here? Haven't the American people been screwed enough? Is Obama being koy? Is this part of the "Change" he promised?
WASHINGTON - House Democrats say the idea of letting judges rewrite mortgages to help bankrupt homeowners avoid foreclosure won't be a part of the $700 billion financial industry bailout.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown_1146
The sad part is the Obama supporters don't get it.
This little $700 billion piece of treason will be forgotten one second after approved, by the sheep that insist on keeping the Democratic Party the party of frightened sheep, aka Obama supporters.
Oh but they hate Nader.
What's Nader's position on this $700 billion theft
"That doesn't matter, he's unelectable ! Obama is for change !"
The truth of it is these frightened Democrats are much more damaging to the cause of liberalism, freedom, economic justice, than the worst the right has to offer. They presume to speak for our side, and they do it so poorly. They silence us with their overwhelming fear and sellouts, giving the corporate media the opportunity to present these cowards as the "liberal movement", rendering such spineless.
Bunk.
"Ralph has run for President over and over again but still has no organization.If you truly want to change the government in the US of A, running for office is perhaps the least successful way. Organize, organize, organize and move your issues to the streets. If your cause is just you will find millions of citizens joining you. If your cause is truly just you will find yourself in jail with those millions as the system melts down around you.
Ralph knows he cannot be elected as he has no organization. Ad hoc campaigns dilute the cause. "There is no organizer like victory, " Ho Chi Minh once remarked.
I endorse the call to organize, organize. It is the inconvenient imperative. Move your organization to the streets, OK, but also to little nuclei of power as elected officials and local leaders surrounded by active grass roots supporters. The Christian right wing has organized patiently on a local level and for local office for years. That has built them up as a significant tipping factor in many elections, even though their positions are actually against the economic and political health of their constituencies. The left needs to organize with as much diligence for independent electoral office and in any group where grass roots people gather.
If you believe Ho Chi Minh, then street demonstrations are not the best organizers at this point, because at best they lead to elation followed by a let down, not victory. We need demonstrations, we need leftist analysts, we need to inform and encourage each other on the internet. We need all kinds of activities. We need some that will take root and grow.
However, as much as I share the frustration, I do not think non-specific rallying calls on the internet lead to much actual progress.
Joe
Damn straight!
"I do not understand how universal bankruptcy can do any good or bring us nearer to prosperity."- John Maynard Keynes
"This is the End, beautiful Friend, The End..."
The passage of this bill will be the final nail in the coffin of the Federal Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.
It is now time to accept this truth and make preparations.
"Do NOT go quietly into that long Goodnight!"
It is time. This is what our Human Purpose has become. The fifes and drums of Democratic Revolution must again sound off the hills and valleys of America.
Make no mistake.
This is worse than the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.
This is worse than the War on Terror.
This is worse than the Occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is worse than torture, and Guantanamo, and the Police Repression of Dissent.
This is the worst degradation that has happened to our System in any of our lifetimes!
After this, the People will be mere working slaves to the private benefit of the ruling class.
After this is the horror of State-Capitalism.
Hunting season is upon us. You need a gun. You need your neighbors.
You NEED to prepare.
Trust me.
Don't Panic,
-matti.
Methinks you're drama-queening and hissy-fitting a bit too much.
(I'm trying not to panic!)
Do be dramatic!
Seek therapy please because you seem to be a danger to yourself and others.
let me see if i follow this. let's say that in reality only 75% of the electorate doesn't approve of the 'bailout'. that count would even appear to be enough to override a veto from our commander-in-chief. so why hasn't congress recessed? oops, sorry, i forgot that they DON'T listen to the electorate. how silly of me. i must have been dreaming!
these banks and investment firms that have or are failing, aren't they the very ones who helped create this fiasco? wasn't this situation created in what they affectionately call the 'free enterprise' system? in the 'free enterprise' system don't some companies 'make it' while others don't? isn't this then another shining example of the 'free enterprise' system? other than new york, chrysler, the airlines, etc. when did we start 'bailing out' failures?
remember after 9/11, the airlines needed $3 billion to get back to business. our 'beloved' administration gave them $6 billion to keep them out of bankruptcy. i believe it took delta, american and united four months to spend the money and then file for chapter 11! are we going down the same road again? the media seems to have squelched paulson's comments about what to do with our 'foreign investor' friends who have been caught up in this fiasco. in the meantime you, happy homeowners, may or may not be able to keep your home. we, the people, are getting the double whammy! the 'trickle down theory' and 'compassionate conservatism' packaged nicely with a bow!
funny, that i can't reach barney frank' website, my representative in this congress, due to some technical problems or so i am told.
nothing changes, i guess. peace to all.
Here's the bill..thanx to a cyber buddy
http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2008-09/42631254.pdf
Here's a bit of an e-mail I wrote to an Amerikan expatriate in Europe early this morning:
"As I write, early indications are that the poo-bahs have conformed to my predictions, and are putting the finishing touches on a "bipartisan compromise" which will be sold to a dazed and confused public in the spirit of the Special Olympics: Everybody's a Winner! Oh, this might be expressed in its more muted, somber variation, familiar to anyone who's been a union member and has been subjected to the Pyrrhic apologies of local union leaders urging support of a lame, concession-riddled bargaining agreement: We stand here today having worked like dogs, and done our level best to make the best of a bad situation; we urge you to accept the best bargain we could strike, along with our solemn promise that we will tirelessly strive to cure the defects in this contract and reverse its most heinous shortcomings the next time around!"
______________________________________________
I don't doubt that the perps WERE tired and puffy-eyed when the deal was struck; it's commonplace for even master criminals to be tired and puffy-eyed after a major heist. But it's a GOOD kind of tired. There's plenty of time afterwards to rest, relax, and count the loot.
It amounts to a serial mugging of We the People; instead of taking everything at once, We get to stagger down the street and be relieved of our valuables at intervals. Now I think I know how Kitty Genovese felt during her tragic final moments.
As others have noted by now, the preliminary information reported in the article is a bipartisan rhetoric-fest. I'm sure that many of us who work in corporations or government agencies are familiar with glib pop-business pseudo-philosophical propaganda, rife with buzzwords, offered in in-house training and seminars. In the present case, we are assured that We the People aren't "marks", i.e. victims, but are actually "stakeholders" whose elected political leaders have thoughtfully and altruistically schemed-- whoops, I meant "labored"-- to make "stakeholders" of Us and confer "ownership" of the solution upon Us. Welcome to R&D Enterprises, where everyone has a share!
In short, they seek to flim-flam Us into believing that we're getting something for Our money-- apart from merely letting Us live, I suppose.
I particularly like the "bipartisan oversight commission", and especially the "new, unspecified restrictions on CEO pay and executive compensations". I don't know about the rest of you, but that certainly sets MY mind at ease.
I think the entire henhouse is emitting a collective cluck of relief, now that the foxes and weasels have resolved to carry off only half the flock, with the solemn assurance that a commission of said foxes and weasels will strictly oversee the preparation of dinner and the welfare of the remaining poultry.
&YYY&
Every War is Sacred,
Every Bomb is Good,
When we dont like you,
in your neighbourhood.
Every bank is precious
All its dollars craved
In your hands its wasted,
In our hands its saved.
For your wall street truely,
Who can do no wrong,
Wars are given freely,
And dollars are always strong.
All congress the genius,
Of big crimes so heinious
To court they'll never go,
The judges they have in tow
In a statement, Democrat Barack Obama said it met the four core principles he laid out - independent oversight, treatment of taxpayers as investors, measures to keep homeowners in their homes, and rules to prevent rewarding Wall Street CEOs from cashing in on the rescue.
------------------------
(1) Independent Oversight: I don't trust Democrats, Republicans or Bush appointed Federalist Society Judges to oversee a criminal act they mastermined.
(2) Taxpayers as investors: I don't want to invest in Hank Paulson's ability to buy junk mortgage securities from his friends...It's all BORROWED MONEY. Only a degenerative gambler uses BORROWED MONEY to "Invest" in a potentially worthless piece of paper. I don't want any part of it.
(3) Keep homeowners in their homes: It's reported above that..."Republicans...killed provisions that would have let federal judges modify distressed mortgages." How does this keep homeowners in their homes?
Obama...You suck!
You Republican....?
Me, Jane
LOL!
That B.S. is out-of-date.
Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative.
These are false divisions of the People and their proflagration will no longer be tolerated by this Citizen.
So if you're looking to spread that crap. You best go elsewhere.
Sending people elsewhere is a false division of the people.
Touche! Good one.
go forth and multiply
2 x 2 = 4
4 x 4 =16
Who is Ron Paul?
He is Rupaul's brother?
lol
Great points, matti.
Yes, this is not so much about the money as it is about a final fascist melding of government and private financiers. This is a precedent. This is the end of us if it goes through. Retroactive immunity for all the criminals. No halting of future derivative speculation (over 70% of rise in gas prices are due to oil speculation on oil futures, a specialty of Goldman Sachs). No inquiry into possible conflicts of interest for Treasury Secretary Paulson regulating Goldman Sachs, which he used to be CEO of, and still holds a $150 million equity stake in. There will be no investigation into the Fed banking cartel that set the US up for servitude when it began printing money for the government out of thin air and charged interest for it back in 1913 after it had engineered a banking crisis. There is over a quadrillion of derivatives created by Wall Street since Clinton, Rubin, and Gramm repealed Glass Steagall in 1999. We've bankrupted communities in other parts of the world who believed in US integrity and had purchased these so-called mortgage backed debts (leveraged 100 fold or more).
The US is too arrogant and blind to see its own folly. Our fall upon this sword of our own making will be horrific. And the rest of the world will be happy to see it.
China, Russia, and India are in talks about creating a new international reserve currency. There is talk about other countries no longer buying US debt. If that happens, the dollar will flatline overnight.
The proposed bailout is Hooverism on steroids: bailing out financiers while doing nothing to shore up the real economy, and racing to hand every last real asset over to Wall Street. Joseph Stiglitz (former World Bank VP and Chief Economist) and others say we are heading toward a hyperinflation a la Weimar Republic.
Ask yourself why Bush and Pappy bought 100,000 acres in Paraguay. Or why Cheney's new principle residence is in Dubai.
Buy your wheelbarrows now.
***
911 was an inside job. Cheney suspended the Constitution via the imposition of Continuity of Government on 911. Congress has been denied access to the COG details. COG is martial law. For more information check out http://prisonplanet.tv/alex_jones_live.html
"Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions. Paranoid individuals constantly suspect the motives of those around them, and believe that certain individuals, or people in general, are "out to get them."'
"Even paranoids have real enemies."
Let me tell you the real text of the bailout plan:
THIS IS A STICKUP.
Put $700 billion dollars in the bag.
Keep quiet or else the President will use his powers granted in NSPD51 and declare Martial Law.
More bags to come.
1-800-828-0498, Free Call
(White House Switchboard)
Ask the operator to connect you to any Senator or Congressperson.
Call all 535 of them.
Then pass the number along to your friends and family.
Post the number on every messageboard you visit!
Do NOT stop calling.
Peace
The propaganda machine is in full swing. Listening to one of the right wing nutsy radio stations the other day, a report noted that a Gallup poll of the people was 85% for, 15% against a bailout. Unbelievable. Even the commentator was flabergasted.
I wonder when they will pull the switch on the internet.
When is the knock on the door coming?
"I do not understand how universal bankruptcy can do any good or bring us nearer to prosperity."- John Maynard Keynes
Here's the txt off Thomas....
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas
Apologies..that's not it..still trying to get it!
Text of the bailout bill may supposedly be found at financialservices.house.gov..I can't get in..maybe someone out there can
I'm not a physciatrical type person, but I'll bet anybody that's ever known a compulsive gambler, has seen this before.
"I swear Honey, I can win it all back, if I can get just one more card/roll of the dice/spin of the wheel."
"physciatrical"!??
I have no problems with typos and misspelled words normally. We all do them, and as long as the point can be understood, who cares.
But "physciatrical" is pushing things. Did you mean "psychotheatrical"??, what seems to describe John McShame and matti.
I'll bet (in keeping with the theme) you were likely just looking for an adjective that means: 'related to psychiatry', therefore 'psychiatrical'...which is not a word.
I'll bet the adjective you were looking for is : 'psychiatric' (psychiatric illness, ward, dept., etc.): but psychiatric-type person is confused and confusing
Easier to say: "I'm no mind-reader (or psychiatrist, or psychologist), but..."
Geez, I got it right out of my 2008 George W. Bush dictionary. Maybe I should get a refund? I tried calling customer service at the RNC where I got it from, but the phones are always busy.
We all bet you are a compulsive gambler?
Want to bet?
What this government needs, and I hate to be crude, is an enema. It has been bottled up for too long by know-nothing fat cats who are power hungry with no regard for the people they are there to represent.
This bailout (not rescue, who is being rescued?) is the ultimate double-cross of the average American. Thank you, globalists, with your high-minded idea of improving the world and neglecting your own country.
There is no guarantee that this proposal will work, considering the same people who oversaw the mess are now the ones trying to fix it. Are they kidding? Where are the financial brains of this country, where are the astute economist? Why aren't they in the negotiations?
No bailout, no how, no way!
"....and I hate to be crude..."
Please look around. Does this seem like a site for dainty, delicate euphemizing..?? No. This is the debating equivalent to ultimate fighting.
Favorite targets: eyes, genitals, jugular...(psychologically speaking). You try to impart as much psychological damage as possible.
Hurl the poop with wild abandon and duck for cover.
As for the content of your post, I'm totally confused as to whom you're referring: "high-minded globalists"?? You wouldn't be talking about that low scum of an administration of slimeballs with their moronic, catastrophic, imperialistic pretensions..?? Would you?
But about that enema, from what was flying around Washington last week, wouldn't you say that a lot of people had been drinking the laxative koolaid? Did McCain have a double...or two?
Yeah, I have to agree that hiring the same people who flooded the yacht to bail it out, seems shaky... Unless they're your friends and family.
Meanwhile back at the (Bush) ranch, the servants were uncorking another bottle of vintage Burgandy, while the guests were mingling, talking quietly, and enjoying the hors d'oeuvres.
"I do not understand how universal bankruptcy can do any good or bring us nearer to prosperity."- John Maynard Keynes
Last word I have is that it goes to the floor tomorrow AM. Call and fax your CONgresspeople, friends, neighbors...mom, pop, sons, daughters, enemies, pastors, priests, rabbis, ministers...anyone who will listen. It's not over yet. Do not give in to these greedy elite bastards. Who the hell is bailing out you and me?
Trotsky said "...the only question remaining is whether the bourgeois politicians have the right to pour out their flood of moral indignation about proletarian terrorism when their entire state apparatus with its laws, police and army is nothing but an apparatus for capitalist terror!"
And so it goes. Buy gold and vote Green.
Government should be able to buy the choice stocks in Partners' Accounts at a discount. In this deal the partners get to keep the finest stocks and other instruments while foisting off their failures on us. We are not supposed to know they have valuable things squirreled away. The best way to make them suffer is to TAKE the good stuff.
We should not buy only the stuff in the fat cats' litterbox, or “CRAP” (Corporate Recapitalization Asset Purchases) as Rick has called them.
This agreement is totally unacceptable to me. It is fine for big investors like Pelosi and the rest. I want what they have!!!!
Joe
Start using shells like the Native Americans were using. This is the problem, people have been using the wrong currency since 1492. Shells are much more valuable than paper and numbers on a screen, I mean come on, they have the weight thing going for them and you can't print more shells, there are only so many being produced every year, and if people get greedy and they are overharvested and go extinct, well, no more inflation!
Don't Panic
‘Apocalypstick’ Pie
Hey ya all better hanker for Hank
and hearken to the dart in the bull
The next bear is gonna be steeper
than any empire keeper can claim a bucket for
This isn’t ordinary Bush bull so get out the pail
debtor’s jail don’t chain no daisy failures
The bull’s brass balls are low hangin
like the fruit of empire ripe
and the loot or sheets of rope
won’t spread the power poke robes
who sell endulgences for rat singers
scurrying for the cover of safer lucre
as the global pig screams for a chute
and a bigger pail for all the loot.
Bail Hank bail
don’t pass on the bear
or boot on the bankie
save all the Hyles for fall
and high style for ‘pig lipstick rose’
while all the bailin sounds the baleful tune
bye bye ‘Apocalypstick’ pie
My only question is, will the money actually go to the intended purpose, or will it go into an off-shore bank acct??
Frankly, I'd like to see China FORECLOSE on the mortgage they hold on this whole
damn country.