The New York Times calls the new program HOPE a lead balloon:
Under the program, the government will insure up to $300 billion in new, more affordable loans for troubled borrowers. For the insurance to kick in, however, lenders must first voluntarily refinance the delinquent mortgages by reducing the loan balances to 90 percent of the home’s current market value.
In exchange, lenders would avoid the expense of foreclosure and uncertainty about being repaid. The government would stem the social and economic damage of more foreclosures, at presumably little risk to taxpayers.
There’s just one problem. At a Congressional hearing in September, lenders were lukewarm about participating in the new program — reluctant, it seems, to take the loss that comes with reducing loan balances.
Due to the prophetic pontificatin', perks, pork and persuasion....
House Passes Paulson's Bail Out Plan
Now the question is will it do anything beyond hand over taxpayer money to Wall Street, delay the inevitable, exacerbate the real problems and dump this entire mess on the next administration. Personally I am just horrified how our Congress shoves this down the throat of the American people claiming it's for main street. Such a lie.
Naked Capitalism has quite the story on how Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson Gave a Conference Call to a select fewInterested Parties, but a mistake was made and the public got in on the call. Oh what they are reporting!:
This is simply scandalous. To have a group of interested parties get a privileged briefing by government officials on a matter of keen public interest flies in the face of what a democracy is supposed to be about. The proper method would either be a published FAQ on the Treasury website or a briefing with the media included. But why should I be surprised? Favoritism has been a staple of the Bush Administration.
The call confirms what many who can read legislation are saying:
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.
Update3:: Bill Attached appears to be the latest draft but there are now reports that a new draft will be released this evening. The version of this draft is AYO08B94. From some internal Network Drive somewhere in D.C.: O:\AYO\AYO08B94.xml
Most everything that everyone is asking for as a condition to put this together has already been agreed to and is in the bill," he said. He said the "votes are there" for passage in both chambers
Oh really? I doubt that for seemingly just a few finance committee chairs were involved and the people really speaking up were ignored.
Will Update this thread as details emerge.
Update1
Congressman Chris Shays:
The most important thing we need to do is not let the market crash
CNBC is reportingWall Street May Manage Its Own Bad Debt: Treasury. It's not official, but considering how fast they are throwing this entire thing together, I'd say it's probable.
What does this imply just saddling the deficit in such rapid succession when the United States already is running on fumes due to bad policy and a absurdly expensive war?
Here's a laugh, just a couple of months ago the CBO was horrifying people that the bail out would cost $25B and they even claimed there was a 50% change that money would not be needed.
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