{"id":2420,"date":"2008-09-21T06:14:50","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T11:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2008-09-21T22:21:27","modified_gmt":"2008-09-22T03:21:27","slug":"no-oversight-no-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/09\/21\/no-oversight-no-thanks\/","title":{"rendered":"NO OVERSIGHT? NO THANKS!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus over the financial collapse<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, 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…<\/p>\n

Second, <\/strong>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?… <\/div>\n

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?…<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, 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…<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/u><\/strong>: Here is the current draft<\/a><\/strong> for the latest plan. It’s elegantly simple. The three key provisions:<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. \n
    The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion<\/strong> 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];<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n
    The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10];<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n
    best of all:<\/em> "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"<\/strong><\/font> [Sec. 8].<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    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.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
    Glenn Greenward is an elegant thinker, and clarifies the anxieties that have been nagging me since all of this financial mumbo-jumbo has descended on us. I spent last week watching my friends fret about the dissolution of their retirement plans, going to gasoline stations wondering if the would have any gas for me to but at vastly inflated prices, and read the news of the collapse of the stock market. Like everyone else, I said "I’m no expert on the financial markets, but…" And last night, my head cleared some and I began to feel conned<\/strong><\/font>. I decided to sleep on it. Then I woke up this morning and read Glenn Greenwald<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and emptywheel<\/strong><\/font><\/a>… <\/div>\n

    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! <\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

    I smell a rat!<\/strong><\/font> A month away from the election, we have a crisis over something that’s been brewing for years, and we’re supposed to do something before Bush leaves Office? with no Oversight? that costs a trillion dollars? that benefits banks and stock brokers but not "the people?" Looks to me like they’ve realized that Johnny Mack and Caribou Barbie are probably going down and they’ve decided to throw them to the wind and bail out their buddies while they still can.<\/strong><\/font><\/div>\n

    <\/p>\n

    And it comes up on Friday… <\/strong><\/font><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}