Congress Daily reports:
Hill Leaders Say Financial Deal At Hand
UPDATED 12:45 a.m.
Negotiators shortly after midnight this morning announced they believe they have a deal on a financial rescue package, but will wait for their staffs to put it in paper before they officially sign off on it. “We should have an announcement sometime [today],” said Senate Majority Leader Reid, while Treasury Secretary Paulson said “we’ve made great progress toward a deal that will work and will be effective in the marketplace and will be effective for all Americans.” House Minority Whip Blunt, who was negotiating on behalf of House Republicans most opposed to the plan Paulson first proposed, said he also was optimistic that the deal can be closed today. More details will be posted shortly on CongressDaily’s Web site.
The Washington Post has more. It’s too early to know if the bill is worth supporting or not. The devil will be in the details.
About time someone asks these greedy pricks to pay something. I am dying to read more. The government needs revenue.
There is a much better way of fixing this, and the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, didn’t even bother coming up with their own alternative solution. The bailout isn’t going to restore confidence in the markets: its only objective was to let wealthy investors keep their earnings after their bets had gone wrong. Congress has ignored the right way to fix this, as I discuss in this diary.
I am leaning toward putting the bulk of my assets into gold dollars; specifically, Kruger rands from S. Africa and Canadian maple leafs. From what I have read the financial exposure from those god damn derivatives could be between fifty and sixty trillion dollars. This may be enough to sink the credit of the USA making paper dollars next to worthless.
We seem to be metamorphisizing into a banana republic. Thanks a lot Mr. Bush; you and your neocon buddies have changed America. Are you related by any chance to the good Doctor Frankenstein?
Thanks a lot Mr. Bush
Don’t just thank him, also thank Nancy Pelosi, who took impeachment off the table. If it wasn’t for her, we might have had a grown up dealing with this crisis.
Dick Cheney?
Thanks a lot you stupid Dick.
Give me a break. Any sensible impeachment would have gone after both Bush and Cheney. Everybody knows that. This has been discussed endlessly.
Sure, Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, would become president if both Bush and Cheney were removed, but a deal could have been cut to let a moderate Republican quickly replace her as president.
The point is, Bush could have been replaced with a more palatable Republican in the same way that Nixon was. But today’s Democrats aren’t interested in maintaining legality in the federal government in the way that Democrats were during the Watergate scandal.
straw man.
Lame never drink and post.
It’s 11:00 am. I’m not drinking anything but coffee.
see alexander’s commnent below: everyone knows it’s been about impeaching the both, not just the one.
Even knowing that impeachment WAS on the table would have gone a ways toward reining in the worst excesses of the administration, but because Nancy and Company chose to let them run free…
I was talking about my comment above. Chill I should have replied to mine. I’m hung over not you! I apologize.
They worked through the night on details, and it will be voted on Monday Morning.
Pelosi appeared early this morning on C-Span with a bi-partisan group and Secretary Paulson with the announcement.
It look like they got strict Congressional oversight and limited pay bonuses to executives who screwed the rest of us. The Republican House member, represented by Minority Whip Roy Blunt said that significant concessions were made to their demansa… and Democrats got it broken up into segments, which means Paulson only gets @250 Billion to start with.
There is also a “fee” imposed on supported businesses which don’t pay back loans in five years (interesting… I haven’t heard this one before.)
I expect that there will still be significant arguments on Monday, but this will probably go through.
BTW: It looks like McCain, who saud he was rushing right back Washington after the debate to be involved with the negotiations, was notably absent in both the discussions and the announcement. I guess he’s working on his next gimmick (see my post: Will Bristol Palin’s Wedding be McCain’s Next Election Gimmick? )
No doubt that McCain is far too busy studying video of his debate “performance”.
From what the WaPo article reads, this is the worst of both worlds. It’s a disaster of a bill and it will not work. Specifically these two paragraphs spell out the coming depression:
Again, those last two paragraphs are the ones that bother the hell out of me. They are the GOP’s doings and they are terrible. What do they mean to you and me?
This is horrendous, folks. Please, please somebody stop this bill.
Any troubled asset? Thats insanity. We will be printing money forever.
Socialism for the rich. Twisted.
I don’t get this. Obama has to know he’s going to be stuck with a situation next spring where he has two choices: a hyper-inflationary collapse where we print money by the boatload and the dollar goes under or a hyper-deflationary collapse where everyone calls in our debt in hard assets and they buy out anything we have still with actual value, thus removing real assets from our economy while the credit markets implode.
Either way, it’s going to be horrendous. This bailout bill, if passed, will solve the “hard recession versus actual depression” question in favor of the latter.
And next spring may be too generous a timeline.
Agreed then blame the Dems. I am really starting to fear this bailout from a political perspective. but like you said Either way, its going to be horrendous.
we’re screwed.
http://www.counterpunch.org/ This is off thread but a tremendous article from Counterpunch on John McCain’s treatment of his wife, Cindy. Alexander Cockburn suggests that physical abuse was involved several times between 1988 and 1993 which abuse caused treatment at the emergency room of a Phoenix hospital.
If true, and I see no reason to doubt it, then, the electorate must be informed of the facts involved. This is not the kind of person we want leading the United States of America. Perhaps, John and Sarah can resign together as candidates for political office.
Have y’all read the gambling story on McCain in today’s NYT?
If you needed further proof that he’s a vindictive, corrupt POS, read it in full.
But here’s something to get ya started. “Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.”
And there’s more…much more. (Sorry i can’t provide the link; I’m on BB).
Can someone explain what I’m missing here?
The current problems on Wall Street are being caused by the toxicity of mortgage-linked assets, right? And such assets have become very dangerous because of a sharp upswing in foreclosures, right?
The median home sale price in the US in 2007 was $247,000. Most estimates put the number of households facing foreclosure at a maximum of about 1 million. So, it would cost about about $247 billion to bail out the homeowners at the root of the problem. Hell, call it $300 billion. Even then, 1 million households get free houses, which would be a ridiculous stimulus for the economy, and the Federal Government saves $400 billion. The banks will lose a bit because their extortionist mortgage assets will be worth less, right? But somehow, I don’t see them complaining much about that right now.
Anytime Reid, Pelosi, house republicans, and Paulson make a ‘deal’ middle class America will get screwed.
THOSE ARE THE VERY PEOPLE WHO REPRESENT BANKING INTERESTS IN THIS COUNTRY.
BTW, when ever you see ‘Paulson’ in print, read ‘Chaney’. Do you REALLY think Paulson is independent of the White House? The ‘tell’ in this whole episode is how everyone, democrats, republicans, the white house, and the media, treat Paulson as independent even though they know he is a white house toady. He will do as he is told and give the money to whom he is told. By Chaney.
nalbar
here’s some of the key things, from an AP article
“The government could get at $250 billion immediately, $100 billion more if the president certified it was necessary, and the last $350 billion with a separate certification — and subject to a congressional resolution of disapproval.
Still, the resolution could be vetoed by the president, meaning it would take extra-large congressional majorities to stop it.”
the president needs to ‘certify’ a piece of toilet paper to get $450 billion? i trust him!
“But Democrats surrendered other cherished goals: letting judges rewrite bankrupt homeowners’ mortgages and steering any profits gained toward an affordable housing fund.
It was Obama who first signaled Democrats were willing to give up some of their favorite proposals. He told reporters Wednesday that the bankruptcy measure was a priority, but that it “probably something that we shouldn’t try to do in this piece of legislation.”
way to go barak, surrender the best and call it a day. now that’s ‘reaching across the aisle’. he won’t have a single penny for any new social programs because it will all be tied up in bailing out billionaires on wall street.