Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road

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Emptywheel:

Hidden in an article reporting that Cheney’s going to go hunt up some support for the $700,000,000,000 bailout is this admission that the Bush Administration has been sitting on it for some time:

    Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough. [my emphasis]

So, for months the Administration has been telling everyone they’ve got the financial situation under control, then all of a sudden Congress has to pass a $700 billion giveaway to the financial sector right now don’t think about it just do it now now now. And Congress is warned that if it doesn’t act now now now and pass this bill as the Administration wrote it with no changes there will be terrible consequences and they would be Congress’s fault. And Congress can’t take any time to read the bill, even though it’s been sitting around in Cheney’s desk drawer for months.

Uh huh.

9 thoughts on “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”

  1. I’m reminded of the neocons’ plans for remodeling the Middle East, which were developed in the early 90s. They got dusted off when Opportunity Struck, I mean 9/11.

    Same marketing pitch: “IT’S AN EMERGENCY! GIVE US BROAD POWERS TO PROTECT YOU OR EVERYONE WILL DIE!!!”

    Thank God we’re a little smarter and more organized this time around.

  2. I saw Jim Cramer on Hard Ball last night.He looked really rattled as he spoke of possible financial Armegeddon.
    This situation reminds me of March ’07, I was up in the ICU visiting my mother. As was leaving, I went by the nurse’s station and asked about her condition. The nurse said mom’s kidneys had failed and she was in denial. My mother had worked in that hospital for over 20 years, and knew well what renal failure means.The patient is on the table, but the Humpiy Dumpty principle looms large.
    This is the Bush administration’s suicide bomb.The cosmic “reset button” is elusive.Pity the next POTUS……

  3. It’s the little boy that cried wolf. How do we know if there really is a wolf or if he is just jerking us around again to see us hop to do what he wants.

  4. “…and it’s stinkin’ to high heaven.”

    (Teenager in the 1970s.)

    I wonder if the fact that the FBI is now investigating the previous bailout recipients, AIG and Fannie & Freddie, will collapse the administration’s insane proposal. I’d like to think so.

    I heard some of Chuck Hagel’s questioning of Hank Paulson, on our local NPR station this morning. Chuck was just bitch-slapping the guy, wouldn’t even let him speak until Chuck had angrily pointed out the lack of any oversight or common sense or honesty in the proposal. Chuck even had Hank admitting, quite clearly, that oversight is needed.

    Also, Warren Buffett stepped in late last night to infuse Goldman Sachs with a pile of cash, so the free market can still work sometimes. Apparently Goldman Sachs was relatively stable, with better operating principles, which is what Buffett insists on. (I’m kinda proud of our Nebraska boys this morning.)

  5. This entier thing is so outrageous that we lose if there is the slightest compromise. I paid in advance to have my speakers repaired at Pacific Stereo which went out of business and I got them back, unrepaired being, how do you say it? SOL?

    The bundles of bad loans are NOT US government-backed securities so why is defaulting on the obligations not discussed amoung the scant few options with which the proponents of treasury secretary superpowers frame this engineered catastrophe? That’s what always happens with bankrupt companies.

    Why is even Obama saying that these companies (actually the investors and business partners of these companies) must be helped at taxpayer expense?

    Am I missing something?

    I suppose that the silver lining is that now going bankrupt can be fun…a way to help your friends who could in turn give you a job. Corporate persona can be changed liike a cheap suit.

  6. Excuse the afterthought but even if there might be ripples or cascading effects with no bailout why is it not being discussed. As I understand it a significant portion of the bad loans were sold to foreigh investors who probably won’t invest in our shaky economy for a long time to come anyway.

    Our legislators seem to be right where they were at the run-up to the Iraq war — proverbial deer in headlight and part of the docile herd…showing no leadership.

    There seems to be a dearth of creative solutions here.

  8. joanr16 (#4) – Buffet’s bet on Goldman Sachs is a pretty safe one, given that Paulson worked there before becoming Treasury Secretary. Interesting how his old firm is one of the two still left standing, no? I’ve read reports (sorry no link) that Paulson/Goldman knew very well that the housing bubble was going to explode, well before it did, and they shifted their portfolio accordingly.

  9. I’ve read reports (sorry no link) that Paulson/Goldman knew very well that the housing bubble was going to explode, well before it did, and they shifted their portfolio accordingly.

    Gee, isn’t that insider trading? Like the kind Martha Stewart went to jail for?

    The thing about Buffett is, he makes only safe bets. At least GS is getting Berkshire Hathaway investors’ cash, and not the taxpayers’.

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