[Paulson] has shelved the original plan to buy troubled mortgage assets while turning his attention to nonbank financial institutions and consumer finance.
Purchasing these so-called "toxic" assets was once the cornerstone of the rescue plan for financial markets and was almost the entire focus of Congress when the package was being debated before its enactment. But almost as soon as Treasury received the money, it decided that giving capital to banks in return for preferred stock was a better use of the funds.
The U.S. government and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo opened a joint investigation into the $34.8 trillion credit-default swap market, the top federal prosecutor in New York said
Might be a scapegoat witch hunt though for they are targeting short sellers.
Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Garcia are investigating whether investors drove up the price of swaps in transactions that were reported to data providers but never actually completed, according to people briefed on the investigation. If so, that would have helped anybody who sold short financial shares. In a short-sale, investors sell stocks they do not own in the hopes of buying them back later at a lower price.
EU Nations Commit 1.3 Trillion Euros to Bank Bailouts
France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria committed 1.3 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion) to guarantee bank loans and take stakes in lenders, racing to prevent the collapse of the financial system
The minute I hear the word Protectionism being denounced, odds are policy for the American people is being fought against by Corporate lobbyists.
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now pronouncing the evils of any international regulation or anything geared to reduce the United States trade deficit:
Although we in the United States are taking many extraordinary measures to ease the crisis, we are not pursuing policies that would limit the flow of goods, services or capital, as such measures would only intensify the risks of a prolonged crisis
Saying Iceland was at risk of "national bankruptcy," Prime Minister Geir Haarde prepared to give regulators authority to take over the nation's ailing banks as a worsening financial crisis all but cut off the island from the global financial system.
Turn on the local news, 15 minutes of fear, doom, gloom, switch the channel, more nightmarish scenarios... and the solution of happy days will be here again? It all rides on the bail out! "Experts" explain how you can lose everything unless Congress passes the bail out!
Now this is clearly generating artificial panic. The market did go down and it's been going down as it will in any correction but that is not a collapse, that is a correction.
I'm not alone watching the spin machine create absolute panic.
Forbes also pointed out that many things are simply not that bad.
Onto the Senate, not. Believe this or not, while Democrats have been the primary negotiators on this bill, other Democrats are sending out emails calling this Lipstick on Paulson's Pig, and is the fault of Republicans.
This time....I do not think so! Proof?
The vote tally was:
Democrats Yea: 141
Democrats Nay: 94
Republican Yea: 64
Republican Nay: 134
Total: Yea: 205 Nay: 228
A simple majority was needed, which was 218.
Clerk has bill title wrong but how Congress voted is here.
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