1 Boring Old Man

The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus over the financial collapse

First, the fact that Democrats are on board with this scheme means absolutely nothing. When it comes to things the Bush administration wants, Congressional Democrats don’t say "no" to anything. They say "yes" to everything. That’s what they’re for…

Second, What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism – where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse?…

More amazingly, they’re free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they’re just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn’t resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn’t support walk away with their gains?…

Third, what’s probably most amazing of all is the contrast between how gargantuan all of this is and the complete absence of debate or disagreement over what’s taking place. It’s not just that, as usual, Democrats and Republicans are embracing the same core premises. It’s that there’s almost no real discussion of what happened, who is responsible, and what the consequences are. It’s basically as though the elite class is getting together and discussing this all in whispers, coordinating their views, and releasing just enough information to keep the stupid masses content and calm…

UPDATE: Here is the current draft for the latest plan. It’s elegantly simple. The three key provisions:

1. The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled "assets") [Sec. 6];
2. The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10];
3. best of all: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency" [Sec. 8].

Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.

George W. Bush is standing before us "urging Congress" to give him "far reaching powers" to take what was already the worst possible legacy he could leave us with – a staggering National Debt – and raise it by a trillion dollars. And who is he bailing out? The big banking institutions that [unregulated] made a jillion bad loans and are now going under because the people who couldn’t afford the loans still can’t afford the loans. I’ve been here before. It’s Bush whining that he needs broad powers from Congress again. And now I read that there’s to be no oversight over how this money is spent!