This bill stinks - Read Section 8

[maco]

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.


Paulson’s Blank Check

I've pasted the text of the bill below the jump. Everyone should read it. But here are the key points:

* No one who foresaw the crisis, such as Krugman or Stiglitz, is involved in making the plan to fix it.
* The man overseeing the bailout is the ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street Company. He helped cause the crisis.
* Paulson helped obtain the SEC exemption which allowed brokerages to increase leverage to 60:1 from 12:1.
* The money is Paulson's to use for buying commercial and residential mortgages and mortgaged backed securities as he chooses. No one has any oversight over him, and he can pay any price he wants to, including face amount of the debt.
* Courts cannot review his decisions, not can any regulators. He has to report to Congress once every six months.
* He gets 700 Billion dollars to use as he sees fit, looking after the taxpayer is a "consideration" not a requirement.
* Bet on that 700 Billion dollars being gone before January 20, 2009. Bet on Treasury asking for more.
* That is $2,324 dollars per man, woman and child in America
* There is no bailout for mortgage holders. Banks get bailed out, but not ordinary people.
* Banks and brokerages made record profits these last eight years. Ordinary Americans barely broke even.
* In 2007 Wall Street paid itself bonuses equal to the raises of 80 million Americans.
* Banks bailed out by this plan need make no changes in how they do business.
* Banks bailed out need not replace the management which drove them into insolvency.
* Shareholders and bondholders of such banks do not lose a cent.
* The securities which caused this crisis are still allowed.
* Expect the 700 billion dollars to increase inflation, especially in oil.
* Bush is asking you to trust his administration with 700 billion after spending 580 billion on the Iraq war. Do you trust him?



http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/20/paulsons-blank-check/

[Seacrest]

The whole country, maybe the world is now:
¡Arbusto!

[OWC Jamie]

I have great faith that our 9% approval -rating Democrat controlled Congress will adjourn so that they don't have to deal with it.


Some janitor in a Louisiana courthouse should decide what to do.

[swampy]

The Dems are trying to dump a whole bunch of stuff on this and slowing it down. Market takes another dive today.

We need a comprehensive fix not a quick fix. Get the deal done with the caveat that further more comprehensive regulative legislation will follow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/busine....html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1222106494-VitqQKvbz7E8jxeLo2kvxg

[Gutenberg]

I think that we need to put aside our understandable resentment at financing the excessive lifestyles of the frat boys at Lehman and Merrill and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and find a solution that will keep them from taking us all down again.

Actually I think someone should call Paul Sarbanes and just do what he says. It's too bad he went ahead and retired.

[Seacrest]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a0avdsXGud5w&refer=home

[Panopticon]

"Paul Sarbanes"??? You've got to be kidding.
Thirty years in the US Senate and all he has to show for it is one of the worst bills {Sarbanes-Oxley} to ever come down the pike.

Sarbanes-Oxley has seriously harmed American corporations and financial markets without increasing investor confidence. The section of the law requiring companies to perform internal audits has turned out to be far more costly than proponents projected, especially for smaller firms. These costs have led some small companies to go private, hardly a victory for public oversight, and some foreign firms to withdraw their stocks from American exchanges. - William A. Niskanen {Chairman, The Cato Institute & a former member and acting chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan.} http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6879

Take a look at what Sarbane's pal Mayo Shattuck is trying to pull on the stockholders of Constellation Energy. Shattuck also has close ties with US Sen. Mikulski {D-MD} and MD Governor O'Malley.

[quote The AP]
A French nuclear power company is upping the ante for wholesale power supplier Constellation Energy Group Inc., offering to pay $8.50 per share more for the company, which has agreed to be sold to a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Electricite de France SA offered Monday to pay $35 per share for the Baltimore company.
EDF made the offer in conjunction with private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG Capital. EDF owns nearly 10 percent of Constellation Energy now.
EDF calls the offer from Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. inadequate, but Constellation's CEO Mayo Shattuck told analysts Monday the company has accepted what it considers the best offer.
Shattuck will totally screw the stockholders to protect his 'severance package' that Buffett will eventually pay once he's seen how bad Constellation has been run! Under Shattuck, not one new power plant has been built and Constellation's subsidiary BGE 'imports' nearly 60% of the energy it delivers within Maryland.

[guitarist]

billb wrote:
Some janitor in a Louisiana courthouse should decide what to do.

That is so ill.

That sounds like something......I would say.

I approve!

(tu)

[Grateful11]

I got this from a friend today, that is in finance:
Grateful11

This email contains:
1) What this new law entails (without the details which are still being worked through in a panicked 2 day session)
2) What is about to happen, if we don't act
3) A request to inform your fellow Americans this is about to happen
4) All contact information for every Senator and House Representative for the entire Unites States.


The New Bill (as yet unnamed) in plain text:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/20/news/eco....

This is a bill – not yet passed – but if it passes, it will become law. Keep this fact in mind. The bill is sold to us as one designed to help the American taxpayer who is losing their home. But, that is not what it does.

Now, read this part of the "bill:"
"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."

>>>>
Take a moment to re-read that. This new LAW would place the Secretary of the Treasury ABOVE THE LAW.
>>>>


So, this bill is being sold to us, the taxpayer, as a design to protect the American public. Ask yourself, if this new law is so helpful to the American taxpayer, why are we not allowed to review the decisions he is making with OUR tax-money? Why aren't courts or oversight committees allowed to see what exactly it is he will be doing?

Here is what the bill doesn't do. So far, it doesn't include anything to actually help those whose homes are in foreclosure, or about to be in foreclosure.

Now, this is what it DOES do:
1) Creates a NEW TAXPAYER FUNDED account, called the "RTC."
2) In this account, trillions in bad debt is funneled from companies who failed due to irresponsibly risky decisions
3) In this account, billions in loans dumped related to STRESSED COMMERCIAL real estate
4) In this account, financial institutions will compete for how little they will accept for their bad debts
5) With this law, the secretary will decide how much of your money he will pay for bad loans, regardless of the true market value.

To make this crystal clear: this account will be used to take YOUR money and then with that money (taken from you), PURCHASE the very liabilities that Wall Street can't sell to any other business or country. And why can't they sell them? It's simple: they are worthless!

We are told that this bill is the lesser of two evils. So, if this is the lesser, what is the greater? The greater "evil" is allowing free markets to work as designed!

In a free market, these companies would fail. They made risky bets that blew-up, and now they are weak. From the ashes, new stronger companies would emerge to fill the void. Yes, it would hurt for a while – but that is the nature of a free-market. This bill spits in the face of the very foundation on which our great country was built. It is designed to bail-out bankrupt institutions that ruined the fiscal health of the country!

Furthermore, after these people – among the richest in the world – get our money, will they pay any additional personal tax to offset the massive burden they are placing on the system? Once again, the "lower classes" will be lining the pockets of the upper class.

What is maddening about this situation is that the U.S.A already had rules and regulations in place – rules created because of the Great Depression – to prevent this from happening again. So why is this happening again?

It's simple really: it's because the people you elected turned a blind eye and chose not to enforce the law while everyone was making a killing. As a good example of this, you may have heard recently in the news, is how the SEC is "banning illegal naked short selling" in the market place. Well, here's a news flash – Naked Short Selling has always been ILLEGAL. Why are you placing a ban on something you are supposed to ARREST people for? (Will their next ban be on STEALING?)

Clearly, these people are not representing your interests. I know, I know, I can practically hear you now, "Since when do they represent my interests?"

That's right. Since when.

They weren't thinking about you when they collected $100s of millions from lobbyists.
They weren't thinking about you while Wall Street speculated with the money you placed in their bank accounts and spun it into trillions.
They weren't thinking about you when they paid JP Morgan $30 billion (of your money) to buy Bear Sterns, or another $85 billion (of YOUR money) to AIG
They weren't thinking about you when, all this time, they told you that this problem was contained.

And so, I ask you today – what makes you think that they are thinking about you now?

How does that make you feel?

1) This new Law places Secretary Paulsen above the law; "Decisions… non-reviewable … agency discretion …may NOT be reviewed by ANY COURT OF LAW OR ANY ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCY"
2) Wall Street, where "Greed is Good", is getting YOUR money, to ensure they keep their 5 mansions, private jets, multi-million dollar yacht, and bonuses: (Goldman Sachs, alone, paid bonuses of 18 billion in 2007 and 16 billion in 2006)
3) The U.S.A – the BASTION of "free market" capitalism – is utterly preventing, in any way it can, to allow the free market to actually WORK. If you think America is a free-market economy, stop that false belief right now. Even SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTS would not embark down this path of socialist "financialism"
(http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2008/09....

So, what can we do at this point?

First: Forward this email. No matter how embarrassed or worried you might feel about it, forward it to other red-blooded Americans so they can at least be AWARE this is happening. If they get irritated with you, they are choosing to live in ignorance.

Second: Call your representatives. They are the people who are supposed to do YOUR bidding. Call them, make them justify this new Law. Don't believe them if they tell you, "this is the best we can do."

This law is not good for you, it will not prevent a crash, it will not cause home value to suddenly turn around. It will cause a short term rally in the stock market, it will allow rich bankers to off-load bad debts, and it will allow Wall Street to recover catastrophic stock losses while the big money sells into the rally (while they work hard to convince you to leave your 401K invested).

I can assure you this: if this law passes, America will fundamentally turn its back on the very premise on which our country was founded: Free-Market Capitalism.

The markets will correct themselves regardless of any action the government attempts to make. It is unavoidable. Nothing goes "up" forever, and we all recognize this.

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Well, apparently not in America. In the U.S.A, when the going gets tough, the tough get handouts. For anyone who has money.

Ever wonder why congress and our government makes these panic changes over weekends? Well, I'm not sure about you, but I'm not usually watching the markets or the news right now. I'm usually outside playing with my son or enjoying time with my friends and neighbors. Tomorrow I'll be watching the game. Frankly, I'd rather be at my neighbor's BBQ than sitting here writing this. But this time, there is something more important to do.

The good news is, some of our voice is being heard. It is not hopeless:
Rep Marcy Kaptur, Ohio: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=mbD62gNi9W....

Below I've pasted a link for every member of the house and senate for your convenience. You can email them, but they appear to be completely ignoring email at present.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_in...rs_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

BTW, if they refuse to take your calls, make note of it and let me know. This is expressly illegal given the call they answered to represent your interests in the government of the United States of America.

Please consider forwarding this email so that others have an opportunity to take action if they choose to.

For more detailed information, please visit:
http://www.fedupusa.org/ and/or
http://market-ticker.denninger.net