Cart before the horse, at least according to a guy schilling to the rich

[trinityvixen]

It's not that he's arguing that he should be given unimpeachable, god-like powers over $1 trillion of the federal government's money. It's that the economy requires him to request unimpeachable god-like powers with no oversight or restrictions on the people who benefit from his largesse:

Under a so-called claw-back provision, the secretary would have the power to force companies to recoup previous payments to executives of companies involved in the program. And Mr. Frank’s plan would give broad authority for the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, to audit and oversee the program.

But Mr. Paulson said that he was concerned that imposing limits on the compensation of executives could discourage companies from participating in the program.

“If we design it so it’s punitive and so institutions aren’t going to participate, this won’t work the way we need it to work,” Mr. Paulson said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Let’s talk about executive salaries. There have been excesses there. I agree with the American people. Pay should be for performance, not for failure.”

But he quickly added: “But we need this system to work, and so we — the reforms need to come afterwards.”

Because why should we reform before entrusting $700 billion to the greedy bastards who've already lost just about as much on their shady pyramid scheme? They've learned their lesson! The lesson was: Mess up badly, get punished. Mess up badly enough, and Mommy will fix everything for you. Yes, giving them close to $1 trillion and sending them off to play again without specific instructions on how not to beat the shit out of the weaker kids on the playground is a great idea.

Mr. Paulson does know that Treasury Secretary is not a president-for-life sort of deal, right? He is probably being replaced no matter who wins the election. Also? His previous bailouts have not forestalled this one being necessary. So much for bailout then reform.

Comments

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Well, why not? It's not like this administration has ever steered us wrong before after telling us to just trust them and let them rush ahead with some huge risky undertaking that could cost hundreds of billions of AW FORGET IT!!

I'm sorry, even I can't maintain that level of sarcasm. Have you seen Marvel Apes?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's bad when even sarcasm fails you. The weariness of this should not win over the fact that this is an executive branch over-reach the likes of which makes Karl Rove et al laughing off subpeonas seem like them not paying parking tickets.

Marvel Apes, mm? Marvel Zombies wasn't bad, though it was uncomfortably gross even for me. Still, you can't go wrong with the hilarity of the Marvel Zombies eating Galactus instead of the other way around.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

In this one Galactus is a monkey. :P I picked up issues 1+2 at my local comic shop last week when Michelle was getting her porn Spike comic. They're exactly as ridiculous as you'd expect. It's worth the cover price just to see gorilla Captain America punching out monkey Hitler.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

What kind of Monkey is a Nazi monkey, I wonder? Also, does making the Cap'n a gorilla really say anything flattering about him or the country he represents, really? I mean, we're talking about them all being monkeys, so no one is going to look especially great (except those adorable Outbreak monkeys--hey, which hero gets to be the Outbreak monkey?), but gorillas are especially ugly. Not to mention notable for their territoriality and male-dominated pod.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

I don't want to spoil anything, but gorilla Captain America isn't quite the paragon of moral virtue that 616 Captain America is....

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh noes! You don't say?

Also, Marvel Zombies Captain America wasn't exactly Mr Peaches and Creams, Apple Pie American neither. Then again, none of them were exactly redeemable.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

There's some hope. Congressional Democrats are pushing for all sorts of limits to Bush/Paulson's "brilliant" plan.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080922/financial_meltdown.html

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

But they're, of course, being accused of stone-walling and being assailed for making political and dragging down something that needs to get passed now-now-now. Bush basically pre-empted them before they could write up their riders with the threat they could be perceived as trying to get their agenda passed at the expense of the nation.

Except, and this is my general impression, no one is buying that malarkey. People are instead questioning Bush (FUCKING FINALLY) because his actions seem the greater immediate expense to the nation. Also, I think the Dems have a good chance of securing enough Republicans who're pissed about a Treasury Secretary having King's dominion over the funds to override Bush's veto. Not that it will get that far. If he seriously tries to veto whatever plan they eventually cobble together (which is still not really acceptable since it will still be a bail out), he'll be crucified.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think some kind of bailout is required, simply because of the magnitude of counter-party risk. This thing's gotta stop, I'm too pretty to stand in a soup line.

I sincerely, sincerely hope that the American people will finally quit buying this Bush claptrap, that for once the Dems won't be rendered into spineless scum-sucking jellyfish at the mere mention of "What will the VOTERS think?!?" from the head simian (speaking of marvel apes...) Because honestly? This is the time that we should finally have them over a barrel.

Handing 5% of our GDP to a couple of financiers is not the sort of thing that should be done with no strings attached.