Bailout: 'No Lasting Positive Effect'

JAMES THINDWA

FRAN TOBIN

The group Jobs with Justice is organizing protests around the country today. Thindwa is executive director of Chicago Jobs with Justice;
Tobin is the group's Midwest regional organizer. The protest in Chicago
begins at noon Chicago time in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of
Chicago.

JOHN BERG

Professor and chair of the government department at Suffolk University in Boston, Berg is author of Unequal Struggle: Class, Gender, Race and Power in the U.S. Congress.
He said today: "The bailout seems to be very deficient but looks as
though it might get through because it's take-it-or-leave-it. Plans to
save people's homes don't seem to be getting traction in Congress. The
government is beholden to the big banks. Our system is pretty
undemocratic and on finances it's particularly undemocratic."
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ROBIN HAHNEL

Hahnel is professor emeritus of economics at American University and
currently visiting at Portland State University. Hahnel's most recent
books are Panic Rules!: Everything You Need to Know About the Global Economy, The ABCs of Political Economy: A Modern Approach, and Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation.

He said today: "An unregulated financial industry is an accident
waiting to happen. Eighty years ago that lesson was learned and New
Deal legislation ushered in an unprecedented era of financial
stability. But over the past 30 years the U.S. financial industry,
Republican free market ideologues, and 'New Democrats' have conspired
to eliminate necessary safeguards. The result is a financial system now
dominated by three megabanks where those engaged in unregulated, risky
investment banking once again have full access to the savings of
ordinary people in commercial banks that are experiencing a category
four financial meltdown.

"A week ago Secretary of the Treasury Paulson came to Congress with a
terrible three-page proposal designed to bail out Wall Street but not
Main Street with no oversight or judicial review. A week of
negotiations with congressional leadership added 99 pages of
window-dressing to the Paulson plan, devoid of any enforceable
protections for taxpayers or homeowners, that was voted down by the
House of Representatives, leaving us with no effective government
response to a financial crisis that worsens by the hour."

TIMOTHY CANOVA

Canova is professor of international economic law at the Chapman
University School of Law in Orange, California. His articles related to
the current crisis include the piece "The Legacy of the Clinton Bubble."

He said today: "I am unconvinced that this $700 billion bailout for
Wall Street will have any lasting positive effect. If the goal is to
help the credit markets, the Federal Reserve already has the authority
to purchase commercial paper and support the money markets. The Bush
administration is once again using fear to scare people into supporting
a dangerous course. There are almost 10,000 foreclosures a day now, and
between one and two million adjustable rate mortgages are due to adjust
upward in the next year. Without help for the bottom of the pyramid,
Wall Street will be back next year asking for another trillion dollars.
This was Japan's quagmire in the 1990s. The decline in housing prices
must be stopped in its tracks and the sooner the better.

"Obama is saying many of the right things -- that we should be helping
Main Street as well as Wall Street, and that we need to re-regulate
Wall Street. But like many in Congress, he's also saying that these
things can wait until next year, that such measures should not be in
the bailout package. However, now is the time when Wall Street is
desperate for taxpayer help for Congress to demand real help for Main
Street."

Canova addressed what's missing from this rescue package: "First, there
should be a moratorium on foreclosures and the Bankruptcy Code should
be amended to allow people to modify their mortgage loans and stay in
their homes. Congress should also extend the ban on short-selling in
financial stocks. This could all be accomplished immediately. Any
exceptions to a moratorium on foreclosures or to a ban on short-selling
can wait some weeks or even months. Likewise, Congress should pass at
least $50 billion in revenue sharing for state and local governments
which have been hit hard by the decline in tax revenues stemming from
falling property values."

Canova highlights the need to scrutinize the Federal Reserve: "It was
the Fed that helped gut the Glass-Steagall Act that had kept banks
separate from securities speculation, and it was the Fed that lobbied
against margin requirements and reserve requirements, and against the
regulation of derivatives and hedge funds. All of this was the
inevitable result of making the Federal Reserve 'autonomous,' a
euphemism for the capture of the Fed by the same financial interests it
should have been regulating. It's like the fox running the henhouse.

"The Fed clearly violates both the Constitution's Appointments Clause
and its private non-delegation doctrine. But the federal courts have
dismissed these challenges on very narrow procedural grounds, namely
that plaintiffs lack standing because the courts say they cannot show
they were directly injured by the Fed. It's ludicrous, and Congress has
the power to change the Fed's structure and make it more accountable to
a wider range of interests and perspectives."
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