Comments on: A Dangerous Trend

By: Vince P

Vince P — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:47:46 +0000

oops the last line in my comment “Well Congress has balked since the law they passed ” shoudln’t be there.

By: Vince P

Vince P — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:47:04 +0000

“Actually, this post wasn’t about the bail out per se at all but rather the observation that the executive moved to fix this enormous problem with relatively little input from the congress. ”

What do you expect Bush to do? Bush, the Treasury, WSJ, The Fed, and others have been complaining to Congress all throughout Bush’s term about the dangers of the GSEs and the Democrats in Congress prevented anything from being done.

In fact if one were paranoid one could arrange the facts so that you could say the Democrats planned for this to happen. I mean what else did they think would happen when they forced banks to throw away their lending standards and give out loans to people who wouldn’t pay them back?

And much blame to the Republicans for sitting around and tolerating this.

I’m ready for the inevitible military coup

Well Congress has balked since the law they passed in 99.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:58:23 +0000

Vince,
The half that I am telling is the whole for now. Clinton isn’t running for President; John McCain is. Yes, the final vote in both Houses for repeal was a huge majority (and McCain abstained). But having the architect of the repeal as your chief economic advisor is essential to note. We are reaping what was sown back in ’99. The country does not need to go back to the future. Just this week McCain stated the fundamentals are sound! How out of touch is he and many other Repubs and Dems and POTUS.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:18:12 +0000

To everybody,

Actually, this post wasn’t about the bail out per se at all but rather the observation that the executive moved to fix this enormous problem with relatively little input from the congress.

Whether the apportionment of blame properly rest on this or that party is outside the scope of this post.

By: fred lapides

fred lapides — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:39:55 +0000

read the entire article and you will note that Congrwess is very vry concerned about how the Bush administrtation is once again doing things without consultation-recall the Iraq mess–and Congress is in fact reaxcting:
[...]The scale and complexity of the project are almost certain to create huge philosophical differences among the parties, which could make negotiations difficult to say the least. Still, lawmakers said the goal was to work through the coming weekend and to have both the House and Senate vote on a measure by the end of next week.

As they exited the session, grim-faced lawmakers said they would await proposals from the Treasury Department. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said he expected to see a proposal within hours, not days.

“What we agreed to do is sit down together on a bipartisan basis and work together to solve the problem,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who said no specific approach was advocated by the administration officials.

President Bush and his top advisers have adamantly opposed bailouts, but the mortgage crisis has already forced the Treasury and the Fed to bail out four of the country’s most prominent financial institutions [...] NY Times, today, front page.

the post is simply another try at badmouthing someone and letting it go at that.

By: Vince P

Vince P — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:59:55 +0000

To make a long story short.. the Republicans reformed the banking industry.. the Democrats insured that every bank would introduce ticking-time-bomb loans into the world’s finance system.

By: Vince P

Vince P — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:54:39 +0000

Mike is only telling half the story

[Moderators.. if this is too long, please edit it]

This is from the NYT 23 Oct 1999

WASHINGTON — The Clinton Administration and top Republican lawmakers reached an agreement early Friday to overhaul the financial system, repealing Depression-era laws that have restricted the banking, securities and insurance industries from expanding into one another’s businesses.

[...]

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/financial/102399banks-congress.html

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:42:11 +0000

On Wall Street, you know that America’s economic leadership rests on strong and flexible capital markets. Capital markets connect entrepreneurs with the investment they need to turn their ideas into new businesses. America’s capital markets are the deepest, the broadest, and the most efficient in the world. Yet excessive litigation and over-regulation threaten to make our financial markets less attractive to investors, especially in the face of rising competition from capital markets abroad. To keep America’s economic leadership, America must be the best place in the world to invest capital and to do business.

– from George Bush State of the Economy Report, New York Federal Hall, January 31, 2007

By: rondo13

rondo13 — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:39:15 +0000

“Since the sixties the congress has repeatedly shoved the tough issues off onto the courts and the executive.”

Absolutely correct. For any contentious issue that could potentially cost them their seats, Congress would rather pass the buck to the courts rather than deliberate. My contempt for Congress (both parties) is boundless.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:26:40 +0000

To my mind, Congress represents the Democratic and Republican parties. They don’t represent me.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:12:21 +0000

POTUS apparently approves the decisions that Bernanke and Paulson are doing. He’s been saying as much for the past year. He hired them. And McCain says the fundamentals are okay. He should know. He and his chief economic advisor Phil Gramm helped engineer what has been going on. Let’s not judge the Republican controlled branches of government until we have a better perspective. After all, eight years of power should count for something.