The Financial Patriot Act
What's this? Congress is putting up resistance over the $700 billion bailout?
They're not 100% willing to take Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson at their word that they have everyone's best interests in mind? Our representatives are actually skeptical that if they don't swallow this scheme lock, stock, and barrel, "the economy will just not be able to recover in a normal, healthy way," as Bernanke threatens?
Granted, as Barron's columnist Alan Abelson has noted, whatever Congress does to the bailout package will almost surely make a bad thing worse. But look at it this way: At least Congress is doing something, anything, to assert its Constitutional authority on this score. It's a darn sight better than last week, when the hacktastic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid more or less punted all responsibility to Bernanke and Paulson because, well, they just know a lot more about all this complicated stuff.
Paulson's conduct has been especially egregious, to wit, the provision in the bill that denies courts the authority to review whatever actions he takes under cover of this legislation. As Nouriel Roubini points out, "He's saying, `Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy.''
Ah, but it is a "unitary executive" these days, and what is this assertion of Paulson's authority other than another manifestation of the executive branch's expansive view of its powers when the nation is stressed by extraordinary circumstances? Orders to torture some hapless prisoner at Gitmo? Orders to bail out another insurance company? Hey, it's all the same. Ends justify the means.
Really, how much difference is there between the bailout bill and the Patriot Act? In both cases, the administration has tried to ram the legislation through Congress before lawmakers could even read the bill, claiming if they didn't act immediately, it would mean certain disaster.
Well, there is one difference. Much of the Patriot Act had been sitting on the shelf for years, crafted by career civil servants at the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration, or maybe even earlier, just waiting for the right opportunity to seize upon public fear to enact their schemes into law. But the bailout bill was thrown together at the last minute by career civil servants at Treasury and the Fed reacting in sheer panic to events they never foresaw. Believe me, the crowd that floated the ill-conceived, dead-on-arrival "Super-SIV" a year or so ago couldn't have been waiting for months to spring the present monstrosity on an unsuspecting public.
I don't know if that makes me feel any better about it, though.
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Okay, they called the cops, but you have to admit that Hammerin’ Hank will go down as the BMF* EVER for sending the US Congress, almost literally, a ransom note that said, “I want 700,000,000,000.00 in unmarked bills or your economy gets it right between the eyes!”
Win or lose, he was swingin’ for the library steps. The man must need a motorized cart to haul his cojones around.
M
*Insert your own choice of words here.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 11:05 am
Get ready for the higher taxes on the rich people that got us into the mess. We are going to fund reparations in some form as well as bail out wall street. Then of course we will bail out main street. As a poor guy I can’t wait for Obama to get elected. We are going to have some serious redistribution soon, and it is about time.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 11:56 am
I’ve got two thoughts on the subject. First, the “resistance” offered by Congress is nothing but election year political theater, because, as noted from all the talking heads on TV, TINA is now in charge. Who is TINA? Why she is the most desired “political reality,” in existence known as There Is No Alternative. Tina is the queen of the “we have to do something” universe. Congress critters may make a bunch of noise, but they know, in the end, that deference to Tina is their only option. (Ron Paul excluded, of course)
My second thought is to ridicule the idea that the provisions of this massive bailout program are any newer than the provisions of the Patriot Act. I find it hard to believe that these weekend sessions are brain-storming creative endeavors, rather than CYA operations aligning all of everyone’s ducks in a row, all along a predetermined line where the strong consume the weak. Since this is nothing but a massive transfer of wealth, you can bet that the strong have been working on this for some time.
But then again, I don’t see anything in the financial world that wasn’t designed to blow-up just like it has (there are always limits to pyramiding debt). To assume that this wasn’t anticipated (and planned for) is to ignore the whole purpose of the criminal not-Federal not-Reserve.
The fact that they spout Keynesian nonsense does not mean that they do not know what they are doing, but displays just how much they do, as they manipulate in order to destroy society for their own gain.
This depression will be no more of an accident than the last. In both cases, the banking system monopoly is threatened by the wealth individuals create outside of it (negating the need for bank loans). So with government collusion, it undermines the system, then swoops in creating even more money from thin air to purchase all of the assets out from under us.
You have to admit, it’s a damn fine scam. Less than a century under the Fed, and they’ve destroyed the market twice now.
Meanwhile, the sheeple continue to vote for more slaughter, just as long as it’s called salvation.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
Mark, paulson has no ‘cojones’ - he’s just a bag full of scum, like the rest of the commies who work in the gov’t.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
The only matter of any real importance to “our” representatives is getting reelected. Not that many people contact them so do so with your compressed thoughts about this super boondoggle and it may have an impact - if enough do. Google your representatives’ name and you will end up at a page with an email link. Prepare and copy a short message then do the same for your senators. What’s to lose?
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
justabrother- You again? Thanks for the dose of socialism. Unfortunately for you, there will be no wealth to redistribute.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
I agree, this has been no accident. Maybe congress won’t cave (after all, a lot of people seem to be outraged and suspicious) or maybe they’ll give some now and some later. The amount is probably inadequate to save the financial system anyway. Then neocons can fault congress and swoop in to save us, ala Reagan.
Smaller RTC, depression with inflation anyway, republicans effectively blame dems and swoop back in.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Speaking of the strong consuming the weak, I see that DR’s I.O.U.S.A. poster boy, Warren Buffet, is suddenly knee-deep in the bankrupting the US game, all for his own gain. Awfully nice of him to “save us” from the alleged evil called capitalism.
Now, why is it again that DR felt him to be a credible person? I keep waiting to hear a talking head ask the obvious question about the GS investment, “I thought you only invested in businesses you understand?” To think that Warren and Charlie suddenly understand the derivatives disaster, and consider it to be a profitable endeavor is a joke. What they understand is Rent Seeking 101, how to fleece the taxpayers for a risk-free gain. One day Buffet correctly calls derivatives “financial WMDs,” the next, “hey why not invest $5-$10B and buy us a bank holding company, so we can launder WMDs to the Fed?”
J.P Morgan would be jealous of Buffet’s ability to scam the whole world while pretending to save it.
Other than selling theater tickets, I have no idea why this incoherent movie was ever made. Is it customary to have the largest whore in town condemning the brothel, while planning on doubling its size?
Buffet made you folks look dumb, yet all I hear is “look, Warren is in front of our poster!”
*sigh*
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
any thought that Mr Obama will be doing some redistributing would have been snuffed out by appointing that old hack Biden.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Hank and Ben are asking for $700,000,000,000 and the right to spend it without any legal challenges or judicial review. I am wondering if they would like a helicopter to the airport and a non-stop flight to Tahiti. What in the hell are these men smoking!
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Yo! Justabrother!…Obviously, you have elected to swallow the RED PILL! Welcome to the MATRIX. Now, sit back; relax; and go back to sleep.
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
IT’S A RED HERRING!
Consider:
The basic premiss is unworkable
The terms are ridiculous
It dominates the news cycle
Conclusion:
The bail out is a misdirection. Its not designed to pass, only to keep the markets operating on hope while the smart money gets out. Look for it to die over the weekend or early next week at the latest. Then, look out below.
Evan
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
Congres is putting up resistance?!!!…
Wake up damn’it!
Congres reached the point where they ask themselfs ” What’s in it for me?” , and finding no positive answer to that question, they will try to get something…
Let’s wait and see what!
Comment on September 24, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
Last count, the notional value of the OTC derivatives market was $600 trillion. Really, what is $750 billion gonna do?
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 12:05 am
A naive question…these sub-prime mortgages are only “toxic” because the mortgagees can’t afford the repayments. Would it not be cheaper for government to make their mortgage payments for them ? Surely, the property market has less chance of collapse if there aren’t hundreds of thousands of empty homes being repossessed and sold for peanuts.
Like everything else, this market goes in cycles…and with America’s growing population, house prices should fully recover within a few years, particularly for properties which have been cared for by resident owners.
Would this policy not cost less than $700billion, and be spread over many years? Being affordable, wouldn’t it give confidence back to international markets? Would it not make sense to American society to keep families with a roof over their heads - what happens to these people whose homes are repossessed?
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 7:20 am
This bailout plan is wretched and abusive;
comparing it to the coddling of Musloscum at
the Gitmo Four Seasons drastically reduces the impact of its’ idiocy. Please dispense with your attempts to assuage your self-imposed guilt and concentrate on financial matters-and realistic comparisons to them.
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Well, isn’t this just special? The banksters think we owe them another trillion dollar bailout so that their house of cards, their 500 trillion dollars in gentleman’s bets (made at our expense, of course)- doesn’t come tumbling down.
There is no clean way to undo this mess. However, due to the massive theft and fraud which have been perpetrated, the only legitimate action is to freeze the assets of all participants and begin criminal proceedings. Perhaps we can even work in treason charges and begin executing the bastards?
A lot of the so-called money has been wasted and will not be recoverable, but that’s no excuse for not trying. Sell the yachts and the mansions, sell the factories to the workers. As Andrew Mellon said in 1929- liquidate them all!
I am a committed philosophical libertarian who finds himself in the truly nauseating position of agreeing with the American communist party (see “out of left field†on Wednesday’s Worldnetdaily).
Politicians and banksters- listen carefully- we the people work for a living. We expect to live decently in the modern world and be fairly compensated for the pieces of our lives we’ve been selling. We live in humble to modest homes and drive humble to modest cars. We’ve listened for years to you half wits and village idiots telling us that our jobs don’t matter- we’re mere technicians- engineers are expenses- it’s OK to sell out labor jobs because they can be retrained as computer programmers!!! But there’s not enough of those so we need to outsource those jobs or import them (at one fourth the wages, of course)- We can have a service economy and all sell real estate to each other!!! Ad Nauseum.
We haven’t taken action against your legions of cops and snoops even though there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. We’ve always quietly gone to church, lived the best we can. We’ve accumulated gold and guns when we’ve been able. We’ve also accumulated your usurious credit card debt when we’ve had sick family members or when your outsourcing and amoral bean counting drove our wages and employment away. The promise of the industrial and automation revolutions was that everyone would be richer, not that we’d have to run ever faster to survive while you lived oh so well.
We’ve gritted our teeth and paid the so called child support when you added legions of new government make-work jobs- putting welfare on the backs of individual men while malignantly growing the welfare budget was a masterful, clever, and evil trick.
We’re damned tired of you crooks. There will be a price to pay- and the bill comes due when the American people can no longer afford the $20/gallon gas and the imported electronics. Then the distraction that cars, jobs, and TV provided will disappear. And by the way- thanks to your ripping off of the Russians, the South Americans, the Africans- your globalization (is that a contraction for globalized exploitation?)- there will be very few places you can hide.
So inflate away, boys. We’re waiting.
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Of course the pain that will be inflicted by the government will be incredible. I am sure that an evil someone is laying plans now to confiscate any wealth (gold, silver etc.) that would be a threat to the Feds. The desparate endgame has just started.
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 11:37 am
the end of the roman empire didnt come about through the excess’s of caligular or nero or commodus,it came about when the wealth of the empire became concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest families, who then sold the empire out to save thier skin.
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
I am reminded of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday” clock of some years back, which was used as a symbol of how close we were at any given time to total nuclear annihilation. Looking back on it, now, I have to laugh (it’s too late & I’m too freaked out to cry). Instead of perishing in a sea of mushroom clouds, it appears the late great American Empire is about to drown in a sea of red ink. Perhaps we should have had a “Doomsday” calculator display or some such.
I wish I could recall the name of the wag who authored this tellingly appropriate quote as it applies to our present dilemma; but, anyway, the fellow wrote that, “The government is the only entity that I’m aware of that can take a valuable commodity, like paper, and make it worthless simply by printing on it.” How true…how true.
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
Yes, Dan, that Dommsday Calculator has been on display in Times Square for many years, showing how the Nat’l Debt increases every moment. I’ve seen it there many times, so yes, it’s been silently counting up to the Doomsday Hour, and now we can all acknowledge the fact that it’s upon us . . .
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
No taxation without representation.
Comment on September 25, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
Our manufacturing base is in the hands of the communist Chinese. At least in 1933, there was a manufacturing infrastructure in the USA. When the house of worthless debt collapses, what foundation do we base a recovery on?
Comment on September 26, 2008 @ 5:29 am
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