US Sen Shelby rips Bush admin Wall St bailout plan

http://news.google.com ^ | Tue Sep 23, 2008 | http://news.google.com

[Maelstorm]

Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby on Tuesday sharply criticized the Bush administration's massive Wall Street bailout plan and urged rapid work in days ahead to develop a better package to calm markets "before we waste $700 billion of taxpayer money."

Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said at the beginning of a committee hearing that the administration's plan "merely codifies (the Treasury Department's) ad hoc approach" taken so far to tackling the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression.

He said the plan, as initially drafted, aims to rescue "the same financial institutions that created this crisis with their sloppy underwriting and reckless disregard for the risks they were creating, taking, or passing on to others."

"We have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work," Shelby said. (Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by James Dalgleish)

[A. Morgan]

Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and Chuck Schumer ought to be in JAIL!

[Diogenesis]

"Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and Chuck Schumer ought to be in JAIL!"

Sorry, there is NO, NO, NO accountability in the US Congress.

More likely, they will be given the positions to run the funds and reap the rewards again.

[Defiant]

I don't understand how they can consider any plan that lets the shareholders keep any of their equity in these companies, while taxpayers pay more out than the companies' market caps. It makes no sense.

I heard a discussion today regarding a plan that would include temporary changes to GAAP that would allow banks to move the bad loans off their books without marking them to market. That way, they could get rid of the assets over a longer period of time, and not in a fire sale. When they are done with that process, they can then take their losses, and hopefully, have some net value. Those that are still under don't deserve to survive anyway, and taxpayers should not pay off their bad debt. It's not like they would go away; a WaMu would just be bought by a Korean bank or BofA and they would take over the branches, deposits, etc. There would be some consolidation, but it would not be a total meltdown.

[FastCoyote]

Thanks all around to Shelby. As made as the financial problems are, instituting indefinite socialism is no cure.

[FastCoyote]

As BAD as the financial problems are. (got caught in a double post)

[Travis McGee]

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold about $6 trillion in assets.[1] In January 2008, The Economist reported that Morgan Stanley estimates that pension funds world-wide hold over US$20 trillion in assets.

If the "bail out" proponents say the U.S. taxpayers will make money on the $700 billion why not have professional investors pony up? .. and of course it's to save the world not just us.

The 700 billion is what? 3.5% of the $20 trillion?

[TomGuy]

there is NO, NO, NO accountability in the US Congress.

Congress: We will create a committee to oversee and fund a commission to study that issue.