At first glance, Dodd's counter-proposal on how to deal with the Bush financial mess looks like a real improvement. But there's still room for more improvement.
(URL fixed, thanks to Adam)
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Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
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http://publicmarkup.org/bill/dodds-legislative-proposal-treasury-department-aut/ is the correct address for Dodd’s bill.
Slightly old news —especially with how fast events have moved— but worth attention: “Just 7% Favor Fed Bailout for Financial Firms”, Rasmussen Reports, Wed., 17 Sep 2008.
Meanwhile, on the flip side, bi-partisan congressional support actually appears more like a cross-partisan split between the legislators with strong interests in the financial sector, and those more closely aligned with other interests.
I wish Rasmussen had polled for “Let’s put the rats up against the wall and shoot them.”
Color me financially illiterate (just the kind of guy who needs Daddy Paulson to know how to spend his money!), but, speaking for the masses, why not just let market discipline work, and these corporations fail? If the point is to save “Main Street” by shoring up Wall Street, why not just bypass Wall Street all together, since they’re responsible for this mess, and make a badly-needed $700 billion investment in infrastructure instead?
BTW, UM July 2008 bar exam passage rate was tops in the state – 92.4%!!! Even I passed 😉
I think the problem is that the financial “geniuses” don’t know the real extent of the financial abyss. They don’t know what will happen if the house of cards starts to tumble. A lot of the mortgage paper that backs up the securities is not worth the face value of the note, but the people who packaged the securities have no idea of the true value. One could argue that a lot of the paper was simply fraudulent, and that someone should go to jail. Of course, that means that you have to let crack dealers out early to make room for criminal real estate brokers.
You might note that this is Pres. Clinton’s doing (if not Carter’s, in a sense), not Bush’s. His administration is the one that forced the subprime loans.
Though you can rightfully blame Bush for not stopping the practice, I can also imagine the vitriol from the left if he had: “Bush doesn’t want poor people to have homes!”
I realize that you are hopelessly biased and one-sided, but you might actually TRY to be honest every so often.
The idea that Clinton ‘forced’ subprime loans is risible. (How do you force people to make bad loans?) It also betrays a total lack of understanding of the current crisis which is NO way limited to subprime loans. (Cf. Calculated Risk’s mantra “we’re all subprime now”.) It’s a whole range of loans, made by people who did no due dilligence, or outright fraud, because they made all their dough on the origination fees and then sold on the loan — so they had no incentive to police loan quality. This is magnified by equally irresponsible behavior in the aftermarket in which people buy paper that has both regular risk and systemic risk while thinking it’s quality stuff (“super senior” something or other) when it is not.
I note you neither provide citation for your absurd claim, nor a real name. So I’m forced to conclude you either know you are lying, suspect you are lying but can’t be bothered to check, or just make a practice of not caring.
Here is an op/ed piece re: Clinton’s involvement in the subprime crisis:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080924
This claim the the CRDA is somehow connected to our current crisis is a lame GOP talking point that has been *thoroughly* debunked.
See, for example, Hale Stewart, Memo to Republicans: CRA Has Nothing To Do With the Current Problems
But here’s the short version in case that’s too long:
1. The Community Reinvestment Act only applies to banks and thrifts.
2. The vast majority of the subprime loans over the last 8 years did not originate from banks or thrifts.
3. The CRA had nothing to do with the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac either, much of which were not subprime issues anyway but higher-grade (supposedly) Alt-A.
(See also Who’s to blame.)