It's not every day you get to write a sentence like this:
As Keith Olbermann was making a pumpkin pie with Martha Stewart yesterday, they discussed the video of Sarah Palin cheerfully pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey with others being slaughtered in the background, as he recalled the classic 1978 WKRP sitcom episode of turkeys being dropped from a helicopter on the mistaken assumption that they could fly.
In the context of politicians scrambling around to give Citibank, AIG and other plummeting turkeys a soft landing, there is something symbolic about Palin's rescue plan for one bird while others are going down.
After all this, the nostalgic may opt for a Thanksgiving dinner of moose chili and watching tapes of Jimmy Carter's fireside chats about the ailing economy back then.
Showing posts with label financial bailout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label financial bailout. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Bailout as Bay of Pigs
It took JFK three months to stumble over the no-win Cuban invasion he inherited in 1961, but Barack Obama is in a deeper mess as he makes his first visit to the Oval Office more than two months before taking over.
The Bush Administration is fumbling the financial bailout in ways that make CIA planning for the Bay of Pigs look brilliant, and this time the new president won't have the option of pulling back and starting all over.
First results from takeovers of Fannie Mae and AIG show huge losses, reflecting a failure to stop the bleeding, and according to the Washington Post, "underscore the government's difficulty in intervening in private markets in a way that both protects taxpayers and ensures that the rescue efforts succeed...a cautionary tale at a time when Washington is debating whether to extend the federal umbrella to Detroit automakers and other beleaguered firms."
After interest rates on the original handouts proved too high to keep AIG from drowning in debt, the government agreed yesterday to offer a stronger lifeline with a new $152 billion loan on easier terms.
Fannie Mae executives are warning that their bailout funds "may prove insufficient" to allow the company to pay off loans or "continue to fulfill our mission of providing liquidity to the mortgage market at appropriate levels."
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News is suing under the Freedom of Information Act to force the Federal Reserve to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers and the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Even before he takes office, President Obama may find himself asking the question that plagued Casey Stengel when he took over the hapless New York Mets, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
The Bush Administration is fumbling the financial bailout in ways that make CIA planning for the Bay of Pigs look brilliant, and this time the new president won't have the option of pulling back and starting all over.
First results from takeovers of Fannie Mae and AIG show huge losses, reflecting a failure to stop the bleeding, and according to the Washington Post, "underscore the government's difficulty in intervening in private markets in a way that both protects taxpayers and ensures that the rescue efforts succeed...a cautionary tale at a time when Washington is debating whether to extend the federal umbrella to Detroit automakers and other beleaguered firms."
After interest rates on the original handouts proved too high to keep AIG from drowning in debt, the government agreed yesterday to offer a stronger lifeline with a new $152 billion loan on easier terms.
Fannie Mae executives are warning that their bailout funds "may prove insufficient" to allow the company to pay off loans or "continue to fulfill our mission of providing liquidity to the mortgage market at appropriate levels."
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News is suing under the Freedom of Information Act to force the Federal Reserve to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers and the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Even before he takes office, President Obama may find himself asking the question that plagued Casey Stengel when he took over the hapless New York Mets, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Bush's About-Faces
After seven-plus years of stubborn certainty, the Decider suddenly reversed himself today on two major issues--the $700 financial bailout and relations with North Korea.
In a deathbed conversion to consensus, the Administration stepped back from the Paulson Plan to buy toxic mortgage-backed securities and moved toward injecting capital directly into the nation’s banks, a position it opposed during two turbulent weeks of persuading Congress to pass the original bill.
Since then, the meltdown of financial markets has sounded a resounding "no" to the Paulson Plan and, at the start of today's Washington meetings of world financial leaders, President Bush indicated with customary vagueness that the US would follow the lead of Great Britain, which took action this week to unlock credit markets by putting money into banks and guaranteeing loans between them.
Details will differ from country to country but, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, the "rescue announced by the British government this week provides a useful template. It offers to insure up to about $425 billion worth of new bank debt, forces banks to raise new equity capital and makes government money available to buy equity."
Growing accord toward international sanity may very well calm market panic next week and begin to restore order after all the impotent flailing around here and abroad.
On the foreign policy front, the Bush Administration took a wheel off "the axis of evil" by quietly removing North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
State Department Sean McCormack announced that the two countries had reached agreement "on an number of important verification measures" of North Korea's nuclear program, including access for the UN nuclear watchdog agency to all of North Korea's nuclear facilities.
This sudden outbreak of sanity in Washington, if it continues until January, may simplify some of the work that a new Administration will have to do to clear away the wreckage of the past eight years.
In a deathbed conversion to consensus, the Administration stepped back from the Paulson Plan to buy toxic mortgage-backed securities and moved toward injecting capital directly into the nation’s banks, a position it opposed during two turbulent weeks of persuading Congress to pass the original bill.
Since then, the meltdown of financial markets has sounded a resounding "no" to the Paulson Plan and, at the start of today's Washington meetings of world financial leaders, President Bush indicated with customary vagueness that the US would follow the lead of Great Britain, which took action this week to unlock credit markets by putting money into banks and guaranteeing loans between them.
Details will differ from country to country but, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, the "rescue announced by the British government this week provides a useful template. It offers to insure up to about $425 billion worth of new bank debt, forces banks to raise new equity capital and makes government money available to buy equity."
Growing accord toward international sanity may very well calm market panic next week and begin to restore order after all the impotent flailing around here and abroad.
On the foreign policy front, the Bush Administration took a wheel off "the axis of evil" by quietly removing North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
State Department Sean McCormack announced that the two countries had reached agreement "on an number of important verification measures" of North Korea's nuclear program, including access for the UN nuclear watchdog agency to all of North Korea's nuclear facilities.
This sudden outbreak of sanity in Washington, if it continues until January, may simplify some of the work that a new Administration will have to do to clear away the wreckage of the past eight years.
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Perfect Political Storm
Congress and Wall Street both crashed today as politicians' fears and public rage collided over the American economy. House members, overcome by genuine doubt as well as panic over self-preservation five weeks before facing reelection, narrowly defeated the financial rescue bill, sending the Dow into an historic dive.
Everybody lost today--the lame-duck Bush Administration, Congressional Democrats for failing to find a convincing compromise, John McCain for prematurely bragging about his leadership in persuading Republican legislators to get on board and Barack Obama, fairly or not, for being helpless on the sidelines.
Watching the numbers on cable TV split screens was an ugly experience and, when the House count was over, Republican leaders John Boehner and Roy Blunt added insult to injury by blaming Democrats for their failure to produce enough votes for passage.
"We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," Boehner said, claiming Speaker Nancy Pelosi's words "poisoned our conference, caused a number of members that we thought we could get, to go south."
Democrat Barney Frank responded with disbelief: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decided to punish the country?"
Before the vote, Frank had said, "Today is the decision day. If we defeat this bill, it will be a very bad day for the financial sector of the American economy and the people who will feel the pain are not the top bankers and top corporate executives but average Americans."
If Washington was broken before today, it is now in shambles as so-called national leaders race to reassure worldwide investors that the American economy is still working.
It may be time to call in older and wiser heads--Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg et al--to oversee this mess before it sinks us all.
Everybody lost today--the lame-duck Bush Administration, Congressional Democrats for failing to find a convincing compromise, John McCain for prematurely bragging about his leadership in persuading Republican legislators to get on board and Barack Obama, fairly or not, for being helpless on the sidelines.
Watching the numbers on cable TV split screens was an ugly experience and, when the House count was over, Republican leaders John Boehner and Roy Blunt added insult to injury by blaming Democrats for their failure to produce enough votes for passage.
"We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," Boehner said, claiming Speaker Nancy Pelosi's words "poisoned our conference, caused a number of members that we thought we could get, to go south."
Democrat Barney Frank responded with disbelief: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decided to punish the country?"
Before the vote, Frank had said, "Today is the decision day. If we defeat this bill, it will be a very bad day for the financial sector of the American economy and the people who will feel the pain are not the top bankers and top corporate executives but average Americans."
If Washington was broken before today, it is now in shambles as so-called national leaders race to reassure worldwide investors that the American economy is still working.
It may be time to call in older and wiser heads--Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg et al--to oversee this mess before it sinks us all.
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