This is a 3 AM moment. The time to lead is now. We will find out a lot about Barack Obama in the coming days."

The lobbying has really started.

Politically, giving more money to the Bush administration is a travesty. Paulson will feed his friends on wall street and starve main street.

Where are the changes for the average Joe?

and none were ever intended. this has nothing to do with the average joe, and everything to do with the fat wall street cats who, with the collusion of the bush administration and a republican congress, gave us the current mess.

the sky isn't falling, the world isn't ending (film at 11), and it's time chicken little was butchered and made into a lovely stew, complete with dumplings.

the people that profited the most, should suffer the most; it's called equity.

oh, and spare me the "but no one will be able to get any credit!" nonsense. of course they will. the terms may be a bit tighter, more documentation may be required, but that's as it should be. it was the unrealistic ease of credit that helped foment this "crisis" to begin with.

to assert that the entire US & world economies will crash to ground, if these banks aren't bailed out, is a flat out lie. what will happen is that the pigs, who've been feeding at the trough, will be trussed up, tied to a stake and slow-cooked over an open-pit fire.

The silly Obama/McCain proposal to raise the FDIC insurance limits does nothing to address this crisis. It is a silly stupid gimmick. And the idea of giving more corporate tax breaks and suspending the Alternative Minimum Tax in the face of record deficits is absolutely outrageous. Harry Reid has produced a travesty.

I have heard nothing NOTHING from Barack Obama that would indicated that he would have a solid, workable solution for this problem.  I know this is a "Bash McCain" blog and it's pretty easy to bash him, but not one, NOT ONE, pundit, commentator has made any critique to Barack Obama, questioning his lack of direct involvement, as a US Senator, in this crisis.

The tax extenders are a hodge-podge of business tax measures that include the annual Alternative Minimum Tax fix, energy tax incentives, extensions of expiring tax cuts, including a popular R&D credit essential to many businesses, and a mental health parity measure that requires providers of health insurance to include mental health coverage. The mental health bill has passed the House before and becomes the Senate vehicle upon which everything is loaded.

Here's some more from the same blog post:

The Senate passed the tax extenders last week 93-2 but the measure has had problems in the House because the Blue Dogs don't like that they are only half paid for. Pelosi could lose some blue dogs with this move, but apparently will gain enough GOP votes to pass the measure. Though, Boehner has green-lighted things before, and look how that turned out...

Anyone who is oppossed to it just does not understand what is at stake. And if, after all that has happened so far this year, one cannot see the urgency for this kind of action then one is indeed blinded by ignorance or ideology.

There is no alternative to the Paulson Plan. If Paulson did not propose it, someone would else would have to have offered exactly the same thing.  

They always win. Even when they lose, they freaking win.

Wow, what leadership!  Reminds me of all the CEOs who  tell the rank and file to go out and make money without any suggestion or criteria- just get 'er done!  

Saying alot of nothing so if the plan doesn't work, Obama doesn't have to put his name on it.  Slick move, Barack.

Also, get ready for the next 4 years. Just like the last 10. From the AP:

The bipartisan move caps a day of behind-the-scenes maneuvering on Capitol Hill over what sweeteners to add to the bill to attract votes from House Republicans.

Counterparty Risk Increases

When banks lend or take on other forms of exposure to each other, they gauge the counterparty risk. In recent weeks, there has been a widespread withdrawal of confidence in counterparties that has resulted in efforts to reduce exposure.
...
Dennis P. Lockhart, President and Chief Executive Officer Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Sep. 30, 2008

Whatever the best way to regain confidence in counterparties may be, this isn't it:

Under pressure from banks and legislators, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an interpretation of an accounting standard that could make it easier for banks to report smaller losses, or perhaps even profits, when they announce results for the third quarter, which ended Tuesday.

Now nobody will trust the Q3 results of any bank. Counterparty risk will be perceived as higher than before. The interbank credit market will freeze further.

It starts to feel like there is an intend to make the outcome as bad as possible.
~~~~~

The comments are dyspeptic, suggesting this may be using Shock and Awe to create chaos to leave the Big Banker Boiz fully in charge of a command economy. Yikes!

Dystopia, here we come?

Even if not this bad, the change in valuing assets is truly remarkable so soon after so many were burned and destroyed by Enron's Mark-to-Make Believe accounting. How soon we forget--or at the pols forget. Guess those big campaign contributions help with that.

Who will trust us economically? We've messed up our foreign policy cred. Now, we're going after our credit cred.

Thank you, Bush-Paulson-Bernanke-Greenspan-McConnell-Boehner. And their enablers: Barry-Harry-Nancy-Barney (Barney, I hardly know ye!).

Chatted with the mail woman--she was alarmed about how Europe thinks of us economically now. I said the former banana republics in Latin America think we're crazy--and getting our comeuppance.

So we can all be Enronzied now? Sheesh.

The pressure on regulators and accounting rulemakers to ease fair value accounting standards in an effort to help end the financial crisis has been intensified by politicians.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, is to urge his European Union counterparts to back changes that would introduce more flexibility in the accounting rules. David Cameron, leader of the UK's opposition Conservative party, said the rules had made the crisis worse and needed to be addressed. On Wednesday, Charlie McCreevy, the EU's internal markets commissioner, said the bloc would follow if other parts of the world relaxed fair value accounting standards.
...
Robert Rubin, former US Treasury secretary and currently a senior adviser to Citigroup, said fair value accounting worsened the financial sector's problems. He told a Financial Times conference that fair value "is not serving our system well" and urged regulators to change the rules.

...The Bank of Shanghai can transfer all of its toxic assets to the Bank of Shanghai of Los Angeles which can then sell them the next day to the Treasury. I had a provision to say if it wasn't owned by an American entity even a subsidiary, but at least an entity in the US, the Treasury can't buy it. It was rejected.

The bill is very clear. Assets now held in China and London can be sold to US entities on Monday and then sold to the Treasury on Tuesday. Paulson has made it clear he will recommend a veto of any bill that contained a clear provision that said if Americans did not own the asset on September 20th that it can't be sold to the Treasury.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to bail out foreign investors. They know it, they demanded it and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen.

LINK has language from the New, Improved Paulson Fix (Is In).

This is not exactly new, but I actually thought it had been taken out of the Paulson Fix (Is In). And per Sherman, Paulson said if it's not there, he will recommend Bush veto the bill. Period. The all important bill which must be passed NOW, NOW, NOW. Interesting, no?

Found at Don's post on The Agonist, with video of commentary on it--which mentions that early on China had been talking about the need for the US to take over toxic waste sold overseas, and is now not mentioning it. Bcz it's a done deal? I have no idea. But this is gonna cost us a lot.

And under the new SEC rule, the banks give the value of the asset.... That does solve the problem of them not wanting to sell if they lose too much on their toxic waste. We all will lose, it seems.

Rep. Roy Blount on NPR right now bamboozling away like mad. No chance any taxpayer money will be lost over short term. Hey, what's not to like?