As of now, the Bush Administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan. Even if the U.S. Treasury recovers some or most of its investment over time, this initial outlay of up to $700 billion is sobering. And in return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects the basic principles of transparency, fairness, and reform.First, there must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money.
Second, taxpayers shouldn't be spending a dime to reward CEOs on Wall Street.
Third, taxpayers should be protected and should be able to recoup this investment.
Fourth, this plan has to help homeowners stay in their homes.
Fifth, this is a global crisis, and the United States must insist that other nations join us in helping secure the financial markets.
Sixth, we need to start putting in place the rules of the road I've been calling for for years to prevent this from ever happening again.
Webb Urges Stronger Regulatory Structure & Cap on Executive Compensation in Government Bailout PlanWASHINGTON, DC - Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) on Saturday evening urged that any legislation granting the federal government the authority to purchase $700 billion in bad assets include a strengthened regulatory structure to prevent future market instability and a cap on executive compensation in companies being rescued by the American taxpayer.
Webb advocated these two provisions in a letter to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd over the weekend while some members of Congress met on Capitol Hill to assess the financial rescue plan offered by the White House.
"It is inarguable that the regulatory structure now in place has not protected either our financial system or the U.S. taxpayer," said Webb. "The administration is asking for an unprecedented rescue of the most profitable institutions in America with the taxpayers footing the bill. No bailout should occur without a return to increased regulation."
Webb also insisted that, if taxpayer money is being used to bail out an American company, the limit on compensation to the company's executives must be capped at the salary of senior federal government employees.
"We must ensure that executive compensation in those companies being rescued by American taxpayers is reasonable in scope, until this crisis has passed and the American taxpayers have been made whole," said Webb.
Webb has been warning for several years that the excessive practices on Wall Street were risking the United States' economic position in the world community and were unfair to the average worker.
"Executive compensation in the United States is outrageously out of proportion with any other period in our history, and with any other major country in the world today. Unless we insist on this basic principle of fairness, we will rightly risk the condemnation of our fellow citizens. Further, as the government purchases securities using this new authorization, it must do so at true market value or less. To do otherwise would subsidize those who precipitated this crisis," said Webb.
To read the full letter sent by Senator Webb to Chairman Dodd, visit: http://webb.senate.gov/pdf/ban...
I think we should rename the Republican Party to Corporate Socialist Party.
"[W]e are not in the moment of true catastrophic financial failure. Hence there is no reason to not make this as hard a bargaining process as possible."
It is up to us and our elected representatives to call Bush's bluff. We and they didn't in 2002, and it resulted in the biggest foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. If we and they fail again, I shudder to think what could result, even if we later elect Obama.
If we are truly in a mess, Republicans would be happy to give up golden parachutes and unreasonable executive pay packages. They should be happy to give tax payers something of value in return.
We have leverage right now and we should use it. Republicans are trying to give away our money and want us to expect nothing in return. Shame on them!
Democrats should indeed put their own bill on the table. If they are really that desperate they will take whatever is offered.
That said, if we are going to have a fight, this is what we need to be fighting over. We can't allow possibly a trillion dollars to be spent without a very thoughtful debate. I think that we have a duty to debate this issue amongst ourselves. Blogs (and I think this is a good thing) now influence political decisions.
Kos, RK, and the other blogs need to really duke this issue out and I think progressives need to quickly arrive at some sort of agreement as to the best approach.
Otherwise, this administration is going to push our Congress into a midnight vote which will amount to a give away of our tax dollars and won't solve core problems (just hide them).
And just like we need to debate this, even more importantly Congress needs to debate this. Nothing scares me more than this sudden bipartisanship. It reminds me of the group-think that occured before the Iraq war. I want members of Congress to literally fight over this issue. It should be a struggle - because frankly it's not an easy problem. We need debate - being the "opposition" requires that people think through these issues more carefully.
It's important that we quickly address the problem. But it is equally important that we have a solution that will work and not turn into a scandal. We need to put the brakes on this thing and make sure this issue is properly debated.
The CDS market Ponzi pyrmaid which overlays the $1.3 trillion or so basic sub-prime mortgage securities market seems to amount to about $62 trillion.
This is basically Monopoly money conjured up by speculators to make a lot of paper profit out of a little investment in their Big Wall Street Casino. Who intervenes when this astronomically leveraged CDS pyramid locks up and then tumbles down? Not merely who, but how?
Could we have some adult economic supervision, please?
We should be talking about tarring, feathering, indicting, trying, convicting, and imprisoning these sociopathic, deregulating looters--not rewarding them by covering their gambling losses.
The plan would raise more than $300 billion of the money needed for the bailout. Sounds like a plan to e...
The rest are good ideas. Time is of the essence though. And I am afraid all of what is desired will not fit into a plan to address this one problem. And if it is, it will most likely not get through this Congress. And when more shit hits the fan, the spin machine will be saying that Democrats twiddled their thumbs while the economy crumbled around them. It's an unfair accusation sure, but what will stick in voters minds? More economic misery or an argument from Democrats that they weren't going to bail-out Wall Street fat cats? Just food for thought.
So, there it is folks, the days of pure investment banks and trading firms are over. The time of one-stop shopping giant multi-national bank holding companies is upon us. And us without a modern regulatory infrastructure to regulate them. Oops! Behold the visage of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup and despair!
Most everyone also seems to prefer that executive compensation and golden parachutes of the top dogs at the guilty institutions be curbed, and any new regulations NOT written by the guilty parties be crafted with due care and diligence in a timely fashion. I personally like the idea that we pay for any bailouts at least in part by taxing some of those top dogs' outrageous compensation (go, Bernie!). There is massive, massive transfer of wealth coming in this country, bigger than what happened under the RTC after the Savings and Loans went belly up, and it is time to keep the looting class from being the beneficiaries.
Frankly, I do not want to let this opportunity pass for progressives to tackle the entire corrupt business philosophy which created this mess, and whose practitioners seem so eager to write up any "reforms;" I do not believe we can trust them not simply to do only as much fiddling as necessary to save their hides and that of their buddies, without changing anything fundamentally.