Tweet
While I was very happy with Obama’s words against the Paulson plan, he needs to make it clear and unequivocal. Krugman explains why:
As I read what’s happening now, John McCain is denouncing the Paulson plan, while Barack Obama — out of a sense of responsibility for the financial system — is only offering cautious criticism.
The Obama people — and the Congressional Democrats — do know that the Republicans will run a populist campaign against them on the basis that they voted for a horrible big-government program, don’t they?
My stomach churns at the thought, but if McCain stands firm against this, he can say: "My friends, I stood against giving away 700 billion dollars of your money to the rich. I may have voted for deregulation and free markets, but I also was willing to let Wall Street absorb it’s own losses. Barack Obama and the Democrats just let Hank Paulson steal 700 billion of your dollars. Say what you will, but I didn’t bail out Wall Street with Main Street’s money."
Again, Obama did the right thing, but he needs to do it in plainer language. His principles are not compatible with Paulson’s bill, he needs to come out against it in plain "Hell No" language. It is the responsible thing to do, because it is not "Hank’s plan or the highway", Congress, of which Obama is a member, can pass its own bill meant to deal with this crisis.
Indeed, let me suggest that Obama needs to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to propose his own Market Stabilization bill. As president he’ll have to execute any bill, as Senator he should step up and do his duty by crafting and leading the fight to put through a bill that meets his principles.
Your country needs you, Barack. Not today as President, but as a Senator. It’s time for Mr. Obama to go back to Washington.
99 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Not today as President, but as a Senator. It’s time for Mr. Obama to go back to Washington.
Agreed.
But I’d put it that he needs to return as the leader of his party – not merely as another Senator…….
Wow, Ian, You’re putting in some serious over-time, eh? ;-)
The Big Question: 2+2=4?
The New York Times reports this evening that “foreign banks, which were initially excluded from the [Wall Street bailout] plan, lobbied successfully over the weekend to be able to sell the toxic American mortgage debt owned by their American units to the Treasury, getting the same treatment as United States banks.”
The Times further reports that two of the biggest foreign banks in need of such relief are Barclays and UBS. In fact, my understanding is that UBS is more on the line here than any other foreign bank.
Let’s add this up.
John McCain’s top economics advisor, who is widely believed to be his choice for Treasury Secretary, should he win in November, is former Sen. Phil Gramm. (Indeed, just last night his spokesman refused to say Gramm wouldn’t be McCain’s choice for Treasury Secretary.)
Gramm is both vice chairman of UBS’s US division and a lobbyist for UBS.
If UBS successfully lobbied over the weekend to get in on the bailout, what was Gramm’s role in the lobbying?
–Josh Marshall
Once again Ian, you are assuming that Campaigning and saying you are a leader is quite different than actually demonstrating leadership. See: FISA
Yes, I am a well-known cynic.
Let’s give this post a lot of Diggs. If we are lucky, maybe it will catch the eye of an Obama staffer!
Was it only a week ago that we heard about Lehman Brothers? Seems like a year.
Hey, CT! Thanks again for the help. My computer is the better for it.
Happy to be of assistance, neuro! ;-)
UBS,SwissNazis?
I am assuming that shaming Obama won’t work, he doesn’t respond to it. Obama’s got his chance here, it’s up to him what he’ll do with it. No harm in encouraging him, especially when he takes steps in the right direction, which he has been doing.
Ian have you seen this…? Short Selling Ban Spreads Around the World
That UBS advertising slogan comes to mind:
“You are Us. UBS.”
No, actually, we are not–we are the ones who would have to pay, and you would be the big beneficiary…
Ian, ya need to add an extra ‘L” to Bill in the headline.
“All your base are belong to UBS”
Yeh he should come back ONLY if he intends to lead the revolt. He needs to walk the walk not just talk the talk from wherever he is. He actually needs to VOTE a great big nay.
If he’s going to cave like FISA he might as not waste the gas to fly his big plane back to DC.
Time for him to take a big boy pill and do the right thing.
We’re WAITING……..
Damn fucking straight. Digg it!
I thought UBS pulled everybody out of the country – fearing possible arrest because of the FBI investigation?
the Swiss are more greedy than Merkins…there is NO poverty in Switzerland,so they are not philanthropic
more propaganda obviously
Iam absoutely magnificent work on the bailout details. Collabotaing beautifully. This is an example of how to make government work. Take it to the finish line.
Ian, you are a trooper!
Thank you for keeping us informed and enlightened.
I’ve got lots of respect for what you have shared here at FDL, but you can’t be serious.
We’re less than 6 weeks away from an election that by most accounts is extremely close, and you suggest he suspend his campaign.
Not gonna happen.
Don’t get me wrong; I agree with you in principle, I just don’t think it’s practical.
Now why did I know that UBS would sneak in here.
WHAT. A. BUNCH. OF. CROOKS.
done. and getting ready to make lots of phone calls tomorrow morning.
The GOP has tipped it’s hand that they intend to spin any attempt to modify or delay this proposal as exploiting a national crisis for political gain. Pretty much the same tactic they’ve been using for the past eight years, anything except total obeisance to the Bush Regime is unpatriotic. Hope Obama can infuse the party with some much needed backbone.
We need to understand that Obama’s staff can keep him aprised of what is happening and that his staff can make his positions are. Leaders do that sort of thing. He hopefully will make some appearances but still exert his influence.
Phil and Wendy Grahmm are like BONNIE and CLYDE,but really fugly!
Dugg; my letter faxed today to those listed:
Dear Senators and Representatives;
I am writing this to you -as well as the Senators and Representative for
whom I am a constituent(Senators Boxer and Feinstein, Representative
Susan Davis)- to indicate my complete support for what Senator Obama
stated today. Namely, the plan to ‘rescue the economy’ MUST:
1.NOT be a blank check: Secretary Paulson doesn’t get money without
oversight or legal responsibility. This “Sec. 8. Review.
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.” is
ABSOLUTELY ODIOUS. It is but another example of the Bush
Administration’s efforts to strip Congress of it’s Constitutional responsibilities for oversight of the Executive Branch. It is way beyond time for Congress to assert it’s Constitutional rights. As Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of New Jersey voiced: “Congress is really not getting any say.” AND IT MUST.
2. There MUST Be Regulatory Changes: The practices that caused the
crisis have to be ended at the same time. Nothing in Paulson’s legislation
addresses the exemptions of leverage given to the 5 investment banks nor
pull back of the regulations allowing financial institutions to gamble with depositors money by getting rid of the rule that said they couldn’t use that money to prop up their investment banking divisions. Using depositor money to gamble used to be considered bad. OR allowing them to use an “asset” that you can’t actually sell or borrow against -so called ‘goodwill’- and whose value is pretty much whatever banks say it is, to meet reserve requirements.
3.Provide taxpayers more than “Consideration”: If a huge bailout is to occur,it has to be done in the way that costs taxpayers the least possible. And that means NOT bailing out Foreign Banks with US Money.
4.Provide for ordinary people to get help too; It can’t just be a bailout for Secretary Paulson’s compatriots, it has to help ordinary Americans too. In fact , it can be reasonably stated the Secretary Paulson’s proposal is intended solely to preserve the world that he worked in all his life.
Please take the necessary actions to address what Senator Obama has
stated. If not, consider this: Even the dullest, non-voting American could be convinced to walk into their payroll department before September 30th this year and “Turn Off” their tax contribution for a month or two.
Congress might quickly get the message when no money arrived in the US
Treasury between say October 1 and 30 that something is amiss out here in
the land of purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain. Also using
September 30th has a special significance to the Federal Government… it’s
the end of the current government fiscal year, so imagine starting Fiscal 09 with no income.Is the IRS going to prosecute every single American who
participates in this act of Civil Disobedience for not paying their taxes?
Good luck with that.
If financial behemoths like AIG are too large and/or too interconnected to
fail but not too smart to get themselves into situations where they need to be bailed out, then what is the case for letting private firms engage in such kinds of activities in the first place?
“The government is already in hock up to its ears, but now it will put up to $1 trillion into this bailout plan, which would be the equivalent of two years’worth of deficit spending hitting all at once,” said Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland. “In return, the banking sector will have a good balance sheet, but the federal government will have a bad one.” ; IS THAT WHAT YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO????
And just to let you know; while I am a white, “independent” voter who is just an ‘average American’, I do know what Residential Mortgage Backed
Securities (RMBS) and “tranches” are and how they work. If Secretary
Paulson insists on being the hiring agent, then those hired should work for
the CBO and be ONLY answerable to the CBO.
US TAXPAYERS ARE WATCHING.
Bruce Sims
San Diego,CA 92116
To:
Senate Majority Leader Reid 202-224-7327
Senator Dodd 202 224-1083
Senator Schumer 202-228-3027
Senator Clinton 202 228-0282
Senator Sherrod Brown 202 228-6321
Senator Feingold 202 224-2725
Senator Obama 202 228-4260
Senator Feinstein 202 228-3954
Senator Boxer – 202 224-0454
Senator Kerry 202 224-8525
Senator Leahy 202-224-3479
Senator Sanders 2022280776
Representative Davis 202 225-2948
House Speaker Pelosi 202 225-8259
Congressman Barney Frank 202 225-0182
Congresswoman Maxine Waters 202 225-7854
Feel free to copy or use as you wish(I copied some stuff others have written in composing the letter).
The opposite is also true. The house and senate can pass what the majority votes. An attempt to obstruct passage will suffer the same fate and can be labeled as being in bed with …………
I think if he wants to win this election folks have to see him stand up and be a leader. Even if it just for a day or a few hours. He needs to vote. You know if he doesn’t the rethugs will be screeching to high heaven.
Saw a headline a little while ago saying if elected, McCain refuses to rule out appointing Gramm as Treasury Secretary. From where McCain appears to be operating, he might just as well appoint Rod Serling.
I think it would kill Obama’s chances if he suspended his campaign. If he’s the leader of the party all he needs to do is call Madam Speaker and tell her what he wants done and to write the bill or amend the one already written. He can’t to anything for us if he’s not in the WH.
i feel i inhabit Rods world right now
i agree…no power grabs or grandstanding now….analysis,then action
And here they are trying to work around the objections to Paulson’s legislation:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..refer=home
from a May, 2008 article:
The bank, based in Zurich, disclosed Tuesday in its latest quarterly filing that the U.S. Justice Department was focusing on whether it had helped wealthy American clients evade U.S. taxes “by avoiding restrictions on their securities investments imposed by the Qualified Intermediary agreement UBS entered into with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in 2001.”
- snip –
On Tuesday, UBS said it had sold $15 billion of subprime mortgage debt at a discount and would cut 5,500 jobs. In addition, the bank said it had a net loss of 11.5 billion Swiss francs, or $10.9 billion, and write-downs on mortgage-backed securities of $19 billion in the first quarter. That brought its total write-offs to about $38 billion since last summer.
now, what did I read about UBS (Phil Gramm) either getting into (Phil Gramm) Paulson’s bail-out (Phil Gramm), or at least trying to do so? (Phil Gramm).
You might want one of the fine mods to delete some of your private info…! ;-)
Thanks, neuro. Dugg. Thanks so much, Ian, for your work on this.
Rod Serling, patron saint of the chain-smoker.
Oh sure Obama is going to risk becoming prez to safeguard the future of the U.S.
Bridge to nowhere to sell yoo.
This is a good idea. He could, in fact, hold press conferences at his DC offices every day and have them beamed out to various places across the country.
ayup! its fairly transparent,no?
goddammit. I don’t want to encourage him! I want him to come out swinging!
I took care of it. :-)
Rod Serling, patron saint of the chain-smoker.
well, *that’s* gonna screw with my night-time prayers routine….
I hadn’t. These people are idiots. The entire hedging industry is going to seize up because of this. They’re actually forcing unwinds.
I have seen this at several different places but no damn cite to what specific legislation it is from.
Obviously it has to do with this bail out;
Sec. 8. Review.
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.
I didn’t say he shouldn’t vote or lead on the issue.
I said he shouldn’t suspend his campaign.
Oh, one of the mods or admins must have fixed it.
Thank you invisible people who make FDL work.
Just throw in a few more ifs, ands, and butts.
Paulson=Goldman Sachs….big fat fox…looking for hens or low hanging grapes
It’s not really a suspension if you or he thinks strategically. A week in washington leading the fight to save the country from financial collapse? No media he could get on the trail would be as good as that.
from Hugh’s list (no not that one) of what P & B (isn’t that a sandwich?) ought to do:
bernhard at moon of alabama agrees – and writes a long post on the subject. he begins:
and many paragraph later, concludes:
i have been reading bernhard for years – since he was the best commenter at billmon’s old blog, the wiskey bar. i have never read anything like this post from him before.
please read the whole thing for yourselves and then let’s discuss. is this what congress got warned about on thursday night?
i agree with you…they eviserated him for the European trip…stay on message…townto town city to city..eyes on the prize
Hey Busted…that’s a section from the bailout legislation. Paulson can do whatever he wants with the 700B, and absolutely exempt from oversight or review.
No, really.
Thank you.
he can do it onthe stump…imo
Some of my best friends are invisible. Well… all of them, actually.
As Josh sez, and then there were none.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26827357/
Would be fitting company for Phil “the Fascist” Gramm.
Of course the Rs will spin it that way. But they’ve got to get McBush in line first. Will he risk going along with the bulldozer/fait acompli ploy before he’s sure which way the wind is blowing?
Silly me, dumb comment. He’ll just lie about it later if necessary.
What I have heard is that the threat on Thursday was money market funds, not swaps. That said, dissolving swaps sounds like not a bad idea, though I’ll have to think on it a bit mroe. Certainly I would at the least make them illegal going forward.
It’s in the bill. Bush actually wrote this in. Hanky Panky doesn’t have to answer to anyone.
Sec. 8. Review.
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.
That’s from the body of the legislation being sent to Congress for its “immediate approval.”
At first, it reminded me of shit I used to write into contracts or divorce settlements – total red herrings consisting of nothing other than shit I really didn’t want anyway.
But, after putting in a few pieces of crap, I could then appear to be quite the reasonable person as I “fought” for them, and then gave them up, one by one. What was left was what I really wanted all along.
Having said all of that, I’ve read the whole bill several times now, and pretty much *every* clause in it is equally as ridiculous as the one you cite.
Switzerland is pretty,the Swiss not so much imo
I think this is what you need.
isnt CINDY LOU a UBS client?
laughed right out loud at that one…
Again, I see your point, but that’s a huge risk I don’t believe he can afford to take.
I think I know what you mean. We had a German Swiss professor in the department when I was in graduate school. Total anal retentive asshole of the first order. Married to a native Hawaiian. We claimed she was the only thing that kept him human.
Come on, admit it.
You took my “Hanky Panky”, didn’t ya?
McCain has really lost his moorings during the past week. His lies and gaffes seem to get exposed within minutes of being uttered. He is completely out of his depth. I know how THAT feels but I’m not running for any office.
i think they never see poverty there
UBS Warburg originated from the Warburg family
Paul Warburg was a banker who profited from WWI and is the father of the Federal Reserve
And the book written by Eustace Mullins Secrets of The Federal Reserve
Hard to see with your eyes closed.
thanks i always enjoy the details
Teddy is upstairs!
The Candidates’ Debate: Expectations
I used to have an invisible conjoined twin but somehow we got separated and when I looked I couldn’t find him anywhere.
This does not bode well…
i never saw any there,its really expensive to live there,they have no army…they basically DONT get involved with the rest of the world…they just hold eveybodys cash
Well YES I DID!
Loved it.
idiots.
Switzerland provides the lads who guard the Pope. I’ve always found that a tad bizarre. Groovy medieval uniforms, though. You just can’t go wrong with curly-toed boots, they go with everything.
Any latecomers to this thread, if you have not already done so, please Digg it so it can receive more attention. Thank you.
yea mercenarys…go where the cash is
fuck obama. he won’t do shit and you know it.
Dunno. Interesting question.
Perhaps some of you would be interested in this article suggesting what led to this “crisis” and what should be done about it:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..799/605351
See what you think.
Of course they’re idiots. But I thought the gnomes of Zürich were smart.
I think I know what you mean rf, but note that Rod Serling was an honorable man who was devoted to the higher possibilities of this country that we advocate here at this blog. The generally dark stories were to wake up the audience to the horrors of the contrary possibilities.
I very much doubt that Serling would be as bad an official as Phil Gramm, and certainly not as deliberately and dishonorably bad.
no way he should suspend the campaign completely unless he is assured of getting massive media attention in Washington. but it is absolutely **crucial** that the Democratic response to Paulson and Bush goes through Obama. This is part of his job now, leading the Party, and this is a perfect opportunity to assume control and do the leading right out front. McCain is an outlier to the party he purportedly leads right now, but he will assume that mantle if his objections to the Bush-Paulson bailout are heeded.
No comparison of the two intended. I think Rod Serling was great. I was only suggesting that McCain has lost his grasp of reality, assuming he had one in the first place.
To the extent that Obama has to sharpen his message, provide the occasional sound bite and stop overestimating the intelligence of the American People, you have a point, but David Broder is still David Broder and Clueless McSame is still Clueless McSame.
He’s not a good debater. His entire shtick consists of “I was a P.O.W. 40 years ago. Make me President so I can fulfill my TR fantasies.
He’s a damned fraud who’ll say anything and do anything to get elected. Falwell, Palin, etc, etc.
If Obama was white, he’d be up by 15-20 points. He’s not, because, unlike the gops, 10 percent of the population won’t vote for a Black Man.
Sadly, that’s just a fact of life. Obama still wins by 5-7 points if everybody gets out the vote, works their tails off and doesn’t take anything for granted.
McCain can’t win. We can only lose if we cough it up and blow it. They need us to screw up. If we don’t, they’re toast, Obama is President, we have a Dem Congress, there’s no more scum on the Supreme Court and order is restored to the Universe.
Face it, gops are scum in the best of times and these aren’t the best of times for gops. They’re gonna swiftboat like there’s no tomorrow because there’s no tomorrow for these schmucks. They know it. We know it. They’re not going to go quietly, but, unless we blow it, they’re going to go.
Our fate is in our hands. So is theirs.
Let’s put a stake through their fookin’ hearts, hold it up, show it to them, fungo it out of the yard and have a good laugh at their expense.
Then we can bill their estates for our time and trouble and give ‘em a dose of their own.
Given the past 25 years, it’s the least we can do.
Gently, folks.
Thanks Ian.
OfT If the Democrats let Wall Street have dime one, before Bush pulls all our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, they are effing nuts. If the GOP and Wall Street took this crisis seriously, that would be the first thing cut.
Obama has spent so little time in the Senate somebody would probably need to give him directions. Seriously, when was the last time he actually casted a vote?
That’s a non-starter. In our checks & balances system that’s not going to be allowed, however much Bush might like it.
On Obama: He should campaign to win the presidency, regardless of where he needs to be to do that. If that means front and center during a big Senate debate, then that’s fine. If it’s out on the stump that’s fine too.
or He could back the Sanders Plan or Bust http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/17295 Among Wall Street Walkers, the Secretary is know as Silk Hanky Paulson?