"We don't need no stinking Consitution!"
Posted on 09/21/2008 11:31:36 AM PDT by Revel
Thanks for the Roller Coaster link - that was a fun ride.
If we had a Republican-controlled Congress, I would be very much in favor of stronger Congressional control of how the bailout is carried out.
But as between the Bush Administration and the Reid/Pelosi Congress, give me the Bush Administration.
I would rather hope for a competent performance by the Treasury Department than rely on the known incompetence of the political crooks and grifters that make up the Congressional Democrats and are at the root of the mess we are in.
If Obama is elected and we have a Democrat Congress, then we are simply completely screwed.
Excellent post. Thank you.
I don’t EVEN understand how that’s Constitutionally allowed.
You’re welcome.
bfl
The only part that will cause trouble, I think, is the jurisdiction-stripping provision. Courts will be nervous about that. I'd recommend giving ONLY the Supreme Court jurisdiction to side-step that, and require expedited review. That measure appears to be designed to prevent the Secretary's actions from being hamstrung in the courts. Protracted litigation - indeed, any litigation at all - would damage the markets. That's why I think giving the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction is the best choice - it minimizes the trouble of district courts and Circuit Courts getting involved.
What do you think?
"We don't need no stinking Consitution!"
If I had to draw Section 8 more narrowly, I would take the suggestion you cited and apply the exclusive Supreme Court review only to legal questions arising under Constitutional provisions.
I would exclude all liability of the Treasury in conducting purchases and sales of securities for money damages in civil actions.
US Attorneys would retain jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any criminal conduct by officers or agents of the United States in carrying out the bailout.
You left out the fact that Paulson has had extremely close ties to China throughout his career. One of the major beneficiaries of Paulson's plan would be the Chinese, who are major creditors of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, investment banks, etc.
Take a look at Paulson's Wikipedia page. It spells out his China relationships.
I am quite concerned with the amount of Level 3 assets involved in many of these firms and the high probability that the 'management assumptions' that were used to value these overinflated the value to get those big bonuses. I want to see that due diligence is done, perhaps by forensic accountants at Treasury or SEC, to make sure we don't get stuck holding the bag of a lot of crap assets while the execs walked away with small fortunes. Bottom line - if there is any way to prove fraud or even lack of due diligence on the part of management, I want to seize their assets to pay the bill before mine are seized by the IRS to pay the bill.
I’d like to see the CRA repealed. I’d like to see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac broken up into a number of companies competing on their own in the free market with absolutely no relationship to the government at all whether quasi or direct, no government guarantee whether implicit or explicit. I’d like to see government get out of the business of forcing or incentivizing financial institutions to lend money on an affirmative action basis, and get back to the point where we have a free market in the housing finance industry where those who take risks and make smart investments make money and those who make foolish investments lose money, the US taxpayer is not implicitly standing behind the politicians’ interference in the market to achieve leftwing political goals.
We are on the same page there!
ping for later. Thanks for posting this.
If you figure out what the WSJ said in that article, maybe you can explain it to me.
It is like this. Lets say you have a house and car and whatever else that you bought and paid a certain price for it. But the value of your house and car have gone way down. Now you want a loan or for some reason someone want to know the value of all of you assets. And you want to claim that all of your assets are worth what you paid for them even though you could no longer sell them for that. The banks have been hiding these things in what is called “Level 3” assets. That is a place where they can claim they are worth whatever the bank says they are worth. But they are hidden from public view so that no one can determine the true value. If the banks sell these to the tax payer at a certain price then they have in fact admitted a reduce value to them, and they have to mark down the value of their company. They don’t want to do that. They want to magically claim that there company has not lost any value. This way they can fraudulently claim that there capital value is higher than it really is.
You might want to read these letters from Karl Denninger to the senate and to congress. Notice that he makes himself totally available to them. He offers solutions. In the 2nd letter he goes into great detail as to what has happened.
http://www.denninger.net/letters/paulson-bernanke-senate.pdf
http://www.denninger.net/letters/2008-07-19-Lawmakers.pdf
Hey rebel - see ya on TF as rebeltrader ?
— tesla
Nope- not me. Believe it or not I don’t have a membership there. I read all the time though. I have learned a bunch from following that forum.
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