Paulson's Bailout Plan a Bid for Control

[helwen]

The folks at The Automatic Earth blog, among others, have been reading the legalese for Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to "save" the banks with a Federal bailout, trying to get it urgently rushed through. Full post at above link, but here's an excerpt to give an idea of what they're talking about:

The plan that Paulson and Bush urge Congress to accept as fast as "legally" and practically possible, gives the Executive Branch, in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, full, unlimited, and unchecked powers over the nation’s financial system, the entire economy, and even attempts to provide far-sweeping power over international finance. Of course the Treasury completely depends on the Federal Reserve to execute its policies, since only the Fed can "print" money.

Congress is side-tracked into a spectator role, and the courts of the country will not be allowed to judge the legality of any action the Secretary decides upon. The plan also implies that $700 billion will be provided "at any given time", which leaves open the possibilty of limitless funding, depending on how many "given times" there might be.

I am not a lawyer, and I have no doubt that even the most intelligent and experienced members of the legal corps will have trouble deciding on these issues. But I don’t see how there can be any doubt that the courts need to study a plan like this, before it can be implemented. The plan itself expressly states that after the fact, they are not allowed to.

I have read many smart people tackle the issue in the past two days, and the only one among them who hits the nail square on the head is Russ Winter. His contention: the $700 billion provision does not constitute a bail-out, it will be used to create a tar pit, in which financial institutions can be liquidated at will.

And of course where is the Fed going to come up with the money to help out the banks? From the taxpayers of course -- you know, all us folks who already don't have a lot of money? Read. Consider. Decide if maybe now is a good time to write your senators and reps.

It is for me.

Comments

Sad

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

But I don't need a blog to tell me it's a power grba. Any time the Gov't tells me it's doing somehitng for my own good, I know it's just the opposite.

This is gonna be ugly.

[hyperbard.livejournal.com]

Yup. This is real crap here. I dislike the word Depression -- but I have heard it now on several networks cnn-type, and cnbc-type too. I've been pndering on and off about it, and I'm not even a math person by the general sense. But graphs are very visual and leave a mark on me, and I've wondered since the thing with the stimulus packages. It freaks me out because I'm on meds, I'm on disability, I'm unsure about things therefore.

Bail-out was a bad idea nevertheless. Despite my fears about my own monetary security, I have worried about this bail-out mess because I didn't think it would help more than as a bandaid, and I was right judging by cnbc's news today about certain companies. And yeah, where will they get the money for this anyway? I've wondered that too.

This election year has been very very weird. Whoever does get in there had better work to fix this problem, instead of more bandaids we can't afford.

[vonblueguy.livejournal.com]

The current Obama Bailout Plan (http://www.obama-bailout.us/) is on progress but we have to do our share in coping with the economic crisis the country has for years now.