Just breaking on MSNBC:
About 10:00 p.m. Thursday night, Barney Frank emerged from a Congressional meeting to announce that House Republicans had scuttled the negotiations over the financial bailout plan.
Following the ill-advised White House photo-op/meeting this afternoon, Congressional negotiators working on the financial bailout met this evening to restart the discussions. But according to Frank, House Republican Bachus handed the attendees a one page description of an alternative proposal — presumably the same one John Boehner and Senator McCain discussed at the White House meeting earlier today. But instead of staying to discuss the proposal, the representative left, claiming he had no authority to negotiate for his House principals, who did not attend. [Updated: More on the meeting here.]
So at this point, conservative House Republicans have essentially rejected their own President’s proposal, scuttled a week’s worth of bipartisan talks between the Administration and Congressional leadership, and simply dropped into the mix a proposal that, when introduced at the White House meeting earlier Thursday, was described as "unworkable" by Secretary Paulson. That proposal reportedly includes even more deregulation and further tax breaks to the financial sector, plus a prayer that Wall Street can rescue itself if the restraints are removed.
Okay, John McCain. You own this mess. You went to Washington to get a solution that didn’t require your help, after telling the nation repeatedly that this was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and that we had to solve it to save the economy. If the crisis worsens in the next few days — as in major banks failing — and you don’t get your crazies in line, you’ve just seized ownership of a possible financial meltdown.
First Iraq, now the economy. Country first.
Update: New poll says Americans can support a rescue plan, just not Bush’s.
photo by essjay
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Great. No Bailout!!!
This is leadership??!!
caught between Iraq and a house of cards.
I’m glad that the bailout isn’t happening but this is his mess now so show us your leadership McCain
Could be the best of both worlds, no bailout and McCain takes the blame for any resulting fallout.
Evening, Scarecrow. I can’t believe it. I am glued to my computer today. I feel like when we were all watching NOLA drown, only this time it’s the whole country, maybe more. And the Keystone Kops are doing their usual routine.
Great news, if true. Gives some time to really think things through and come up with a much better plan. Markets will tank for a while, but I’d prefer an Obama administration to take this up in January.
McCain is daft.
MORE VERTIBRATE DEMOCRATS!
For those who have been following, when did McC. and Obama leave the WH?
This is what the modern Republican Party is all about, fucking things up beyond all recognition. McCain, like Dubya before him, is the poster child for movement conservatism. On the up side, I am increasingly convinced that no action is the best action regarding the Wall Street bailout. I do think that congress needs to do something to force renegotiation of failing mortgages (reduces asset devaluation by keeping houses off the market and gets lenders more return on their investment than foreclosure). they also need to implement a strict regulatory structure for the entire financial sector, not just depository banks. Finally they need to break up the really big outfits like Bank of America. Too big to fail is too big to exist.
Hey you guys this is bailout is not the solution. We need to let the bad institutions and actors fail.
We need to keep our powder dry for what is to come. Recession is here but it is just beginning.
We need to save our 700 billion so we have something left to stimulate the economy later when it gets worse.
This guy makes a lot of sense to me.
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com…..ilout-2328
We should be protecting the people that spend the money in the economy. Ordinary taxpayers and depositors of these institutions. We should not be propping up the walking dead banks and financial institutions that got us in to this.
Furthermore, the sky is falling rhetoric from McBush is not helping. People in panic will not help the situation.
He just did. He laid a nice big, smelly turd in the punch bowl.
This was probably because McDopie’s handlers, recognizing that they have a losing hand, feel the debate tomorrow will kill McDopie’s campaign, so they’d rather delay the bailout so as to have an excuse to scuttle the debate.
i liked it that Shelby held up the 200 economists paper,stating the best and brightest said no bailout
One can only hope. I was convinced this was a rope a dope.
Of course it is not over…
thanks scarecrow
McClatchy headline on this story: Bush’s bailout meeting ends in disarray; McCain gets blame
More at the link from Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and others.
Except the last I heard the debate is going on with or without him. If he doesn’t show, he will look like the jackass he is.
conservative House Republicans have essentially rejected their own President’s proposal, scuttled a week’s worth of talks between the Administration and Congressional leadership, and simply dropped into the mix a proposal that, when introduced at the White House meeting earlier Thursday, was described as “unworkable” by Secretary Paulson.
IOW, one fine day’s work by the Repubs.
high fives all ’round?
Obama needs to hammer McCain if he is behind this apparent failure of the negotiations.
At this point, I’m not sure why it should matter whether McShame turns up for the debate or not. I’ve never seen a human being literally fuck himself before.
worst president evah
So is Jane paying you all over time for the extra Bailout, cancel the debate coverage? I wasn’t expecting this much news until the last few weeks of the election:)
I think it is a strong possibility that they were attempting to pin this unpopular plan on the Dems.
They didn’t count on the traditional “Conservatives” crying “foul”. Exploding the deficit is not the way to go.
I don’t understand why the Dems didn’t see this from the get-go.
So obvious.
Somebody get a rope!
IMNSHO no legislation means financial calamity. GM borrowed money at 7% yesterday. The Dems seemed to have a tranche set up committing “only” 250 billion and help for Main St as well.
This afternoon. McCain reportedly sat there mute the entire time, then at the end when there appeared to be some kind of consensus, mentioned the alternative plan proposed by House Republicans, while DECLINING to indicate whether he supports it. Chaos ensued.
oh yeah…imo
Hope the protesters line the steps of the Capital and drum out the
ears of the Republicans as they leave tonight and be there in the
morning to harass them all day.
May be time to send MsShame tons of emails….what a sore loser if he does
not attend the debate…..he will be a total loser then….and the press
is ready to hang him anyway.
Moesie
Let’s hope the rest of America sees it that way
What I read at first: “Caught between Iraq and a house of cads.
It actually seems more accurate for some reason.
Signed
A new JP Morgan account holder, kind of hoping they bought my mortgage too.
We could not have asked for better. They may well have slit their own scrawny throats.
Watching TDS. Awesome
I think this may actually qualify for autoratfucking.
narsicisstic neoNaploeanic shmuck
Except McCain-Palin would be worse. The old fucker is crazy and Palin is even crazier. We gotta start calling McCain not McSame but McWorse.
21-7 Beavers
I just wish I could believe they’d limit the blast radius when they self-immolate.
I’m still trying to get a handle on what’s going on – have the Critters and Gooper Senators finally untethered themselves from Chimpy, or are they vainly fronting for McCheese?
Maybe, but the markets also seem to have some innate resiliency. Earlier, eCAHN was marveling at how quickly Wall Street had implemented a workaround for the short-sell ban.
They didn’t count on the traditional “Conservatives” crying “foul”. Exploding the deficit is not the way to go.
“George W. Who? Never heard of him.”
“But whoever he is, you can bet your ass I’m gonna campaign against that SOB in a few weeks….”
Has anyone looked at McCain’s *cough* plan for the bailout and figured out what it would cost America? Is it better or worse than Paulson’s plan?
i concur
707
Thank you. What a mess. Apparently the meeting for tonight has also ended.
Higher interest rates are necessary. There has been too much loose money. That is what got us to where we are.
The interest rates going up is because risk is being repriced. This is all normal except that it isn’t.
What I mean is that what is happening is normal it is just that the scope is very large because the looseness of the money has been far too long and far too deep into the economy.
Protect normal people who have money saved.
The paradigm has changed. Austerity will rule the day. People will have to begin living within their means. That is not necesarily a bad thing.
It also means people who have money should get more to put it at risk in investments.
Do you think Palin is upset that McShame is robbing her of her chance to be the one who destroys his presidential aspirations?
Better that they do it to themselves than for it to be done to them.
supposedly i heard,Paulson nixxed it,and it was for more deregulation…i heard
I just wish I could believe they’d limit the blast radius when they self-immolate.
Just keep your head up and your eyes open. They’re pretty easy to spot coming….
McCain is about as qualified to contribute to economic policy decisions as I am, with the important difference that I am not running for president.
The “alternative” plan offered by McCain/Boehner could be a ruse. The thing that McCain is in DC to theatrically push back. Then we get a watered down and flawed Dodd bail out. That’s some fetid Republican politics.
A good DKos diary on this:
Don’t Take the Bait
Unfortunately, as Krugman points out over at his blog, any of the bailout plans proposed will not really address the major underlying problems, which means we the taxpayers will get screwed and the economy will still be in trouble. We need to back off and think this thing through before doing anything. From what Krugman, Delong, and others have said, it sounds like the feds buying up equity interest in the troubled firms and imposing strict regulatory controls might help, but the Rethugs will never buy into that.
There are $11.1T real-estate mortgages in the U.S., and one percent of them are in default. Therefore, the government cover all the credit-default swaps on them for $111B. In an earlier thread, I pointed this out to Ian, and he responded:
I don’t understand that. Is he saying that for every dollar of real-estate that a bank held mortgages on, they were allowed to loan out, say, ten dollars in unsecured business loans? Is he is saying that the public is being asked to cover unsecured business loans that are in default, for which they can get nothing in return? Is that where the $700B is intended to go?
Ah, the old “Double-reverse unrequited inter-party ratfuck.”
I have been thinking that she is going to be really mad that his mess has about ended her run. She’s been dreaming big.
she will definately need an EXORCISM after this campaign…hope she goes back to her ignominious past and stays there
Boner likes McCheese but the House Goopers loathe him.
Oh good god, they would never do that. This is going to be the dirtiest possible bomb.
Insurance seems to be the plan.
To which I have one thing to say. How can you buy insurance to something that has already happened?
These assets have already started to fall in value. The only unsure thing is how much farther they will fall. Who is going to sell insurance for that and how will that make the banks have money to lend?
Oh and has anyone ever heard of CDSs? That is insurance on the toxic crap. Oh and it is not regulated and it is the next big shoe to drop.
Though I have not seen the plan I think it is bullshit because of what I said above.
what Obama said today
I agree. But at this point, McCheese actually looks worse than Chimpy. Where to turn must be their never-ending quandary.
The failure or the impending disaster…
Good question. What is the US supposedly buying with the bailout money? Why can’t the money be spent to nationalize all outstanding credit default swaps at the purchase price, and then forbid the USG from ever collecting on them? I mean to simply buy the all bets that have been placed that people will default on their mortgages. That would remove the risk, would it not?
Critters and McCrazy are all desperately trying to distance themselves from Mr. Less Popular than Genital Warts in order to win their elections. The available evidence indicates that all concerned will cheerfully slit each other’s throats at the drop of a dime.
know a good priest? preacher?
McCain cynical idea is to tap into the resentment Main Street has for Wall Street. The Bush charade today was, in my opinion, the first step in Karl Rove throwing his BFF Georgie under the bus. In RoveWorld posing Dubya with Pelosi and Reid proves that Bush was really a Democrat all along. Real repubs still support the miracle of an unfettered free economy…until you
needdeserve a bailout.The Paulson, Boehner, conservativ Republican, McCain, Frank, and Dodd plans were all fucked up. The Dodd plan was probably the least bad but was still pretty awful. None of these guys seem to have a clue. It is all fake. It is all made up. And none of it will work.
As for the politics, Boehner probably dropped that grenade just to let McCain off the hook for tomorrow night’s debate. After all, that’s more important than avoiding complete financial collapse. We are being killed by blank, boneheaded stupidity but what can we expect in the Age of Stupid?
Of course they were.
Get ready for Mittmo Romnutz to ride in on his trusty steed, which was just let out of it’s cage attached to his car’s roof, and use his wonder twin powers of financial management to make everything better again. It’s happening soon.
I don’t think she is bright enough to figure out just how totally fucked they are. Did you see that slow motion train wreck on the CBS Evening News tonight? Almost too painful to watch.
Ah, the old “Double-reverse unrequited inter-party ratfuck.”
An oldie but a goodie…
Palin has a witch doctor. That should work!
Answer: because there are $45T of OTC credit-default swaps out there. Yes, you read correctly, that is indeed a “T”.
Obama has played McCain well re: McCain’s fake campaign suspension. I could see a guy like Kerry falling for it.
Oo ee, oo ah ah, ting-tang, walla-walla bing-bang.
There, that should do it.
she has the Kenyan guy,but he might make her eat…Rat droppings i suspect
Actually, I suspect you may be more qualified. 8-)
This is too complex. Is Crazy, the same as Lucy yanking the ball from Charlie Brown? And the Democrats are Charlie Brown?
to stupid i add,GREEDY ,POWER HUNGRY
The good news is you can stick a fork in McCain-Palin. The bad news is Obama is going to inherent this mess. They fucking do it every time.
dugg
We may be headed towards a very serious recession, or worse, no matter what, and the jockeying now is to determine which of these parties gets blamed for it for the next 30 years.
Don’t know why we didn’t attend to this sooner.
Digg it here.
But that’s the payoff value of the bets, right, not the amount of the bets that were placed? I’m saying: Let’s nationalize those, by fiat, but only pay the purchase price. So the holders don’t lose anything, but we stop the bets from ever being collected.
i sad Mittens would show up,but BAIN(offshore all jobs) Cap,is a noose around his balls i fear
They were softball questions, too.
I’ll have to take your word for it. Iowa City is a black hole for TV reception; I’d have to pay for cable to even watch any of the networks other than (ugh) Faux.
It’s like the Republicans are having some kind of a contest to show which of them is the craziest. It’s getting hard to keep up: Paulson, Bush, McCain, Boehner, Palin. If the country was half as smart as these guys are batshit crazy, we could have solved the financial meltdown in 30 seconds as well as curing cancer and the common cold.
Afraid I might have created a superfluous Digg entry, Suzanne.
Big time. Did you see the look of horror on Couric’s face when she realized she was interviewing a zombie?
Wigwam:
As I understand it the problem is that the Credit Default Swaps are doubled and trippled over. They are not a pure insurance of the underlying asset. They are a bet. So anyone can make the bet whether they hold the asset or not.
Credit Default Swaps are completely unregulated (yes completely) (notice no one is trying to change that right now!). So what results when firms start to fail is what they call counterparty risk. That is all the parties that held the debt of that company get affected, but because of the CDSs it is not just the ones that bought the debt it is also the different parties that were on either side of the CDSs. Some of them have to pay and some will get paid. The number of companies/firms/mutual funds/countries affected is totally arbitrary depending on who made the bets (CDSs) on the failing company.
Now place this whole complicated mess in the middle of a recession that started with the worst housing slide since the Great Depression. So all these institutions are already losing some money on their bad bets on real estate. They are already losing money because fewer and fewer people are able to pay their bills on time or at all because of all the reasons we know. Then the CDSs start to hit. The payouts are huge and the banks are teetering on the brink of insolvency. And all of them know it so they don’t want to lend whatever money is left to anyone!
Oh and now the Chinese don’t want to lend to us either. I am thinking in no small part because our Pres just got on TV and sad we are in a crisis so that he could get a giant bailout for his Wall Street Cronies.
Sorry so long…
But that raises a question: How do you derive $45T of credit-default swaps from $11.1T of real mortgages? The answer is that I don’t really know, but I have a conjecture. Say I loan you money to purchase a house, and then I buy a swap from Fred to insure me against the event that you default. Perhaps I’m not so all that confident of Fred’s long-term solvency, so I buy I insure against Fred defaulting by purchasing a swap from Sam against the event that Fred defaults on the first swap.
That way I have two swaps derived from your mortgage, and I can keep on do more.
she is pathetically dense,but also…mean as an angry hornet
Bush bootlicker Bob Schieffer is the (a) debate moderator?
The Republicans can jockey all they want. Deregulation was the horse they rode in on, and they own this shitpile.
Couric: “Mocked?”
Palin: “Bird?”
interviewing a gelatin fruit salad imo
Won’t matter. The wound is too deep now.
As long as the thing is referred to as “700 Billion Bailout”, regardless how the costs are recovered or not, it is not going to be welcomed by tax payers (who also happen to not be wall street). Not only does the plan need to be repackaged it needs to be relabeled.
I wonder what her expression would have been like if somebody had whispered in her earphone that the zombie enjoys a certain popularity with hardcore Republican voters?
Mean and stupid is a dangerous combination. Saw a lot of it growing up in Oklahoma.
no problem – yours is the one up top so we will use that one…
yup,Caligula jr has same malady
It’s like the Republicans are having some kind of a contest to show which of them is the craziest.
wow – who would be qualified to be a judge on that contest?
otoh, it’s got prime-time teevee hit written all over it….
Couric’s true calling might be of therapist. Tell me how you felt about that. I was concerned that Couric would throw softball questions, which she did, but I didn’t realize that those softball questions could be Palin down.
Right. So let’s unroll all that craziness by giving the holders of all those CDS back their premiums, taking over title to the CDS’ themselves, and then frickin’ burning the things so they can never be presented for collection.
and where is Sarahs newborn????????
……………………..
……………………………………crickets
Oops! My bad. I see your point.
It would be interesting to know what the total purchase price of all those swaps has been. I got the aggregate amount insured from the “credit default swap” entry of the Wikipedia, but I don’t think I saw the aggregate purchase price. But I don’t think that money is creating the problem, in the sense that it is not actually owed to anyone and has already been figured into the balance sheets of the swaps’ sellers.
The newest reality show for MTV. Has everything. Sex, drugs & alcohol, outrageous stupidity, and batshit crazy. It will be an instant hit.
Couldn’t agree more.
A couple huge rednecks wanted to beat-up my 17-year-old brother while my family was eating breakfast at a Denny’s in Tulsa, circa 1977 because he had long hair. Good times…
yes, been thinking that as well
although apparently I see now it was a symbiotic relationship all along – he used their noise whenever he needed his maverick cred ratcheted
but these cretins love ‘the kill‘ – too tempting for them so I guess they’ll join up – and look how they’re totally willing to fuck their masters Bush and Cheney – am lovin’ the symmetry
How about pitchforks and torches? Seriously, this shit is treasonous. The cheney regime needs to be shipped off to the Hague post haste. And that little bitch LIEberman as well.
wigwam, it is why most of the higher order derivatives need to be nullified. They are air based on air. As long as they are treated as real, there is no solution to the problems of the financial system. They are the biggest bubble of all. We need to pull the plug on them. The whole theory of complex derivatives was fatally flawed because it eliminated moral hazard and rewarded stupid decisions.
Actually Couric impressed me, she was able to focus and press using extremely simple language, and by doing so managed to show Caribou Barbie to all and sundry for the severely underdeveloped human being that she so clearly, indeed so depressingly, is.
Yes. Not only that but you don’t even have to own the asset. So JPMorgan can bet that thier banking client will default on its bonds that JPMorgan doesn’t own and that he may actually have insider information about.
Key words: NO REGULATION.
Apparently that is how one division of Goldman was betting that the mortgages would go bad, while the other was churning the Mortgage Backed Securities out the door. Apparently they did well when it blew up. (Relatively Speaking.)
Hell, they wanted to do that to me on an almost daily basis for the same reason. Of course, I also had earrings at the time. 8-)
So let’s invalidate them by law. Nationalize them by buying w/taxpayer money if necessary, and at a deep discount if necessary.
that little cretin was playing footman today for McCheese,anything to get in front of the camera
Or how about those wedding plans, Sara? More crickets…
We could try a little modest labor action like this. I think it might catch their attention and have a salutary effect.
But that would leave the purchasers of the CDSs with devalued mortgages, many of which are going into (now uninsured) defaults, which IMHO is the real problem. I think that what is being proposed is to make the government the mortgage insurer of last resort, given that the sellers of CDSs are now defunct.
thank you Mr.Greenspan
Polar bears are going hungry.
Letterman still fired up about McSame – good stuff.
EEEE doggies! From the NYTimes:
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Ninety-five seconds of goofy music to go with that.
BTW Letterman is keeping up with the McCain jokes.
Oh and on Calculated Risk JPMorgan expects a 44% price drop in California Real Estate. 58% if severe recession.
i saw that hahahahahahahaha
No one has ever tried to hurt me because of my long hair. Of course it hasn’t always been long.
While she did press, the questions themselves were beyond softball to maybe whiffleball. The whole performance was pathetic. I did not know what to be more embarrassed about. Couric’s inane questions or Palin’s inability to answer.
how are you,was wondering how ya been!!!! good i hope
refuted earlier in the day by CNBC – and the original report did not include T-Bills
The are not ensuring mortgages. CDS are ensuring the Mortgage Backed Securities and other bonds.
Begala stone cold called Bush a “high functioning moron” on CNN. The table concurred.
I don’t recall witnessing dripping anger and outrage like this. Palin getting tossed around like a rag doll.
What load of wank. There’s nothing that needs to be done about the financial sector that can’t wait till next February. Give it a rest.
Spending $100 billion buying up the troubled mortgages would not solve the derivative market problem, but it sure would be a better use of the money. Hanky Panky and Bernanke’s themselves have said that you need to solve the problem in the underlying real asset market before you can solve the derivatives market problem.
My take is that as the real asset prices (housing) falls over the next year or so, the intractable tangle of this unregulated will just start tearing itself apart again. So I think that is another way of saying, with most economists, that the Hanky Panky won’t solve the underlying problem.
$100 billion for mortgages in an new HOLC would be a very good start at fixing that crucial part of the mess, and at 1/7 or 1/10 the cost.
It is common, even usual, for total value of a derivatives market to dwarf the value of the market for the underlying real asset. This is not a problem, and in fact makes the derivative markets very useful -IF they are well designed and well regulated. The market in mortgage derivatives and swaps is neither.
Of course. You can always count on Dave to thoroughly beat a horse from full vitality to bloody shreds. He may be on McLame’s case until inauguration day.
Didn’t somebody write a song about that?
(all I can remember is “he’s a snake in the grass, I tell you guys, he’s an undercover agent from the FBI, sent down here to infiltrate the KuKluxKlan”)?
Oh that is good. I was so hoping that was not true, however how do we know they are not threatening?
Just saying…
has this been covered while i was at work?
Palin Accepted $25,000 in Gifts, Alaska Records Show
Hi Hugh. Thanks. I don’t really have a good grasp on these concepts, especially the higher-order derivatives. It seems to me that if someone bought a swap on a mortgage to insure against a credit default, and the government pays off that mortgage, that derivative vanishes into thin air. The purchaser got what he paid for, only by an unexpected route. Presumably all higher-order derivatives of that mortgage also cease to exist. Right?
uneasy rider
Gilbert Shelton did a great Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic strip on that theme. Freewheelin’ Franklin is running away from a couple rednecks, trips and crushes a cartoon of amyl nitrite hidden in his shirt. As a result of inhaling the vapor, he transforms into an incredible freaking hulk and gives the rednecks a horrific pummeling. In the final frame one of the rednecks says something like, “Lord gawd, Billy-Bob, that was the meanest hippie you ever picked out.”
And Letterman’s next guest is Paris Hilton!! Perfect set up to show the Paris Hilton video on that “old guy.”
The reactionary House GOPer plan for insurance with less regulation sounds like a giant credit default swap, with the US Treasury playing the sucker at the tail end holding most of the risk.
Or, am I misunderstanding it.
708!!!!! and consider their positions and income “g”
China won’t lend to us? Did they say that they won’t buy our T-bills even a hint in that direction if taken seriously could set off a huge run on banks, the market, the hedgefunds etc etc Domino Theory time.
geez, it took you a full minute? Feeling all right tonight?
lol. thanks.
Well, you are of the female persuasion, which makes it ok. Things have also changed a lot in the last 30 years. By the late 70s a lot of the rednecks in the region were starting to grow their hair out. When I left in the late 80s they were most of the long haired guys.
sorry i was so slow – working on stuff backstage and the forking youtubes was slow loading up (/s)
Sure, and that’s where the stuff about giving judges the power to reset extravagant mortgage rates and underwater balances at a pre-foreclosure stage comes in. So yes, let the mortgage holders suffer some loss, but only moderate losses, and only in cases where necessary. This will establish a valuation floor for the assets, rather than the current free-fall property valuations (”last time we tried to sell it was worthless, so the whole portfolio must be worthless too”) which seems to be the root of the balance-sheet problem. Then you have a basis to say some thing like “Well, OK, the properties aren’t worth 100% of the loan amount, but they’re probably OK for 75% or 80% of the value because that’s how the Court cases are coming out.”
Maybe the MSM talking heads heard $700 billion and looked at their stocks. I think all those retirees in Florida just made some calls to their financial planners too.
We need some new polling out of Florida.
Also keeps houses off the market, which slows the asset devaluation.
as per above – the original report was bogus – out of HK. it did not include T-Bills in it’s bogusness.
You gotta be kiddin’ me! I can smell the desperation from here.
fooey. you beat me to it.
shall we progress to
eep op ork ah ah?
It’s those other bonds that worry me. The money raised by selling those bonds has all been spent on salaries, dividends, bonuses, and other costs of doing business. Apparently there are no assets to back them up and no cash flow to make pay their premiums. They are “junk bonds.” And now the public is being asked to pay off on the insurance on junk bonds?!? What the fuck?
At this point, I have to say: God bless Saint John McCain for derailing that piece of shit that Barney and Chris and George were about to fob off on the public.
Nope. I saw that story a well. Reportedly Pelosi commented, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”
I agree. I think one of the problems is that the GOPer cannot admit to themselves that an unregulated free-for-all securitization of the mortgage market has made the price adjustment process on the underlying real asset market more costly and more unstable (so less efficient with more risk).
That is striking at their ultimate religiouis faith in the market. They cannot have it.
Sorry
this is a Republican Study Committee letter to Paulson – dtd two days ago
it is NOT the piece of paper Congressman Frank was waving around earlier but I link it as the final paragraph gives you a good idea of what their “plan” is
all of it plays to McGimmick’s talking points, make that sorry ass talking points
Precisely.
(I am willing to make myself available to solve the Crisis, should my nation require me.)
The funny thing is, I was using that line in reference to the fine folks at her church speaking in tongues before I even knew that they employed a resident witchdoctor.
watching Letterman on delayed DVR.
He’s pretty much non-stop on McGramps’ ass.
Do not piss off a Hoosier… *g*
(and no, I don’t know exactly what a “Hoosier” is supposed to be)
Badass, maybe…
or maybe the correct answer is “it doesn’t matter, just keep in mind that I can hold a grudge and fuck with you for a long, long time”.
Which is a big part of the problem. “Free markets” are a cultural myth. Markets can only operate efficiently within a strong regulatory framework which limits cheating (which the market system itself encourages).
I was just thinking there, hmmmm and and all the other FDL guys and gals maybe we could all,ya know, start a thread, where we jes talked ta one another in Plainese, ya know?
One interesting side note, JPMorgan had tried to buy WaMu earlier in the year for $8 a share – the deal fell through on price and in part because WaMu’s CEO was going to lose his job. Today WaMu shareholders are left with nothing. That’s the price of greed for shareholders and taxpayers are left holding the bag.
Mullet, anyone?
I agree 100%. There’s one problem that I was told about recently, and I’m not sure if I understood correctly. What I think I was told was that the recent so-called mortgage reform took away the judges’ ability to force a renegotiation of the mortgage on someone’s principal residence. Second home are okay, but not the pricipal residence.
(bows) Konnichiwa, sadly
Motherboard ate it last Monday. New machine with Vista 64-bit and a day getting all the damn settings set. 22″ widescreen monitor and I’m spoiled already. Long way from Unix and Windoze 3.1/DOS.
Good point. Someone needs to learn ‘em that no matter how pure and beautiful any given system may seem, you always always always have to do the due diligence to root out any systematic vulnerabilities. Higher-order derivatives constitute just such a vulnerability. Constant vigilance.
Ah, their game is being revealed. They are trying to link the the Shrub Admin and Democrats now as the freespenders trying to use taxpayer money to take over everything…those damn pinko commies! We gotta stop them Libruls!!! McInsane spokehole tonight:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/219841.php
A two-fer for Repubes where they can claim to be separate from Shrub and tarring Dems to Dumbya, and at the same time try to reclaim the fiscally responsible charade.
Conglomerate Media will no doubt repeat this storyline continuously without any question whatsoever. 48% of Americans will agree with their storyline in upcoming Gallup polls. Obama must stay on offense and call them out!
I was just thinking of mullet – and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Ratfuckers.
oh congrats …enjoy!
Maybe it’s “Hoser” from a CCTV comedian team in the 80’s.
that piece of NEWS SAYS IT ALL
One interesting side note, JPMorgan had tried to buy WaMu earlier in the year for $8 a share – the deal fell through on price and in part because WaMu’s CEO was going to lose his job. Today WaMu shareholders are left with nothing. That’s the price of greed for shareholders and taxpayers are left holding the bag.
While I do not think that a “soft landing” is likely under even the most optimistic circumstances (this whole thing has been allowed to get way too FUBAR), this, along with the feds purchasing equity stakes in some of the troubled firms (with all kinds of restrictions and guarantees) is probably the best course that we have any chance of passing (outright nationalization might be more effective, but that one ain’t going nowhere).
wrt to Washington Mutual seizure, from Obama campaign:
Below is a Statement from Senator Barack Obama on Washington Mutual
“The government-brokered sale of Washington Mutual is the latest sign of the perilous situation facing our financial system and our economy. Although Americans with deposits at Washington Mutual should rest assured that they are safe under this arrangement, the failures of our financial institutions threaten economic instability, jobs, and the incomes of American families. This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. This is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem – this is an American problem. Now, we must find an American solution,” said Senator Barack Obama.
Deep fried mullet.
I think it is worse than that. The wonk theory stuff I learned in grad school, the ‘free market’ is modeled as an exchange with very specific rules. An E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E with very specific rules put down in math that are not broken. What you see in the theory that these people refer to in order make the case that it is not all just nonsense, is nothing like real world markets for most goods, especially the housing market.
The whole free unregulated market religion seems insane to me. I do not understand how any economist who had to suffer through learning the theory could have any faith in it.
But reactionary free market fanatics wave pieces of paper with economists’ names on them, and have the faith of zealots and nothing else. Not theory. Not evidence. Not history. It can become a kind of insanity that can destroy bright and nominally well educated people (for instance, Paulson and Bernanke)
In addition to blaming the looming market crash on McCain (whether he deserves it or not), we should probably also give him credit for doubling Letterman’s ratings.
Yep. More financial insanity brought to you by the GOP and the Democratic enablers.
According to the NYTimes, she had complained to Couric about the media mocking her foreign policy experience before the interview. If I were Couric, I would not look at her in horror, I would start giggling and say your kiddng right?
I’m thinking it just might. Depends how scared they can make We The People.
hoosier – person from that flyover state filled with farmers
Hey did you really think the rethuglians would negotiate in good faith?? They never have and never will. To the nothing will work unless there are less regulations and more Tax relief for the Uber Rich and Corporations, who by the way 65% pay NO, Nada, None, Zip, Zero in Federal taxes! Real good negotiators Ya fucking right!!
They’re following Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s theories, which assume a “perfectly functioning market.” Ain’t no such thing. It’s like they’re reading aloud from “The Wealth of Nations” without thinking about what they’re reading. Any good anti-capitalist would have them for lunch.
I assume “cheating” includes lying their asses off?
jane upstairs
Top Ten List:
“Top Ten Surprising Facts About Sarah Palin:” (presented by ten residents of Wasilla, Alaska)
First, the government is buying mortgage backed securities not the mortgages under the Paulson plan. Second, they intend to buy them through reverse auctions (which I think are bogus but that’s another story) at a discount. It would depend upon how the derivative was written but credit default swaps were essentially insurance against loss of value of the mortgage backed paper. So I don’t think it would go away. The whole situation is made more bizarre because having sold a credit default swap a company could than buy a derivative to hedge against the risk of the swap and so on ad infinitum. The only way I can see to get past this is just to say screw them and nullify the lot of them.
did I mention the grudge thing? *g*
Rethugs will never go for wholesale nationalization. Period. Nothing on earth will get them to vote for that (though we did effectively do that with AIG).
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they’re not.
Now you’re talkin’. Nullify the lot of them. Close down the frickin’ shell game.
Sort of like Okies, but more civilized and less violent.
I think their ethics are considerably closer to situational than they are to inviolable.
That’s cold, man! True, but cold.
Even in a best case scenario, most of those models only work with emergent markets (which is what they were analyzing anyway). Do not work at all in mature markets, where competition is minimized.
Yeah, this has been the best Letterman I’ve seen in maybe 20 years.
Always. That is why the minimal framework for markets to function is standardized weights and measures, currency regulations, and tort and contract law.
Derivatives that are ultimately derived from collateralized loans can be dismissed of by paying off the original loan, or so it would seem to me. But derivatives that are derived from nothing more than faith in the fiscal soundness of a corporation are a horse with a different set of feathers.
Spent the first 35 years of my life there. Know it an love it, but don’t really miss it all that much (especially not summers).
Ahh, mayhaps that’ll be attached to one of the later posts. I haven’t figured out how to get around that space time thing about can’t be in two places (rooms) at once.
Been here 26 years myself. You’re right, summers really suck.
Yep. I wouldn’t call the late 1700’s exactly the height of industrialization. Even Marx’s idea of communism was outdated and unworkable by 1920.
Been gone for 20 years. First in Chicago and now Montana. Summers are much better here (70s & 80s with no humidity).
Its clear to me (after a few glasses of wine). Wall St does not like the plan (executive compensation, equity positions, bankruptcy protection for homewowners) and wants a better deal. A better deal for Wall St executives, that is. I’d bet on closer examination the republican house member plan is much better for the Wall Street Gang.
Why else do this?
Do the laws on Gang memberhsip apply?
RICO! RICO! RICO!
Please forgive that momentary indiscretion.
There models assume large numbers of buyers and sellers with mostly small businesses. An inevitable consequence of market maturity is consolidation and a dramatic reduction of the numbers of competing firms (ultimately trending to monopoly or oligopoly).
bullpucky
I totally agree with you on this, but the big bonus is that he did it in such a fucked up way that he’s now going to get the blame for anything bad that happens from here on out. He could have just made a bold statement about how he simply would not support a bailout that takes from the poor and gives to the rich. That would have buffed his “maverick” credentials and increased his standing with regular folks. Instead, he threw his weight behind some bizarre 11th hour “insurance” scheme instead of the Great Bipartisan Compromise. David Broder’s going to be pissed, and you can bet your ass that any plan the House Republicans come up with will cost us more than whatever they’d “agreed” to tonight.
I kinda agree, what they tried to do was stack the deck…
…chairs on the Titanic. McCampaign goin’ DOWN…
EXACTLY!
late late nite 2 flights up
Bush is Lucy, setting up the political football.
The Congressional Democrats are Charley Brown, moronically convinced they have no choice but to once more try and kick the ball.
But this time, instead of Bush snatching the ball away, it’s McCain who intercepts the play, grabs the ball and runs with it to the opposite goal line.
The score: Bush and the Democrats look like a losing “team” while McCain boasts of saving the taxpayers’ $700 billion.
And Barney Frank is once again revealed to be a capitulating tool.
Lish is right
The dems will not just look like a losing team, they will be nailed by the GOP as being responsible for the taxpayer bailout.
The GOP knows exactly what it is doing. We have been set up once again in a no-win situation. let’s just hope that our dem leaders fight back on this