September 22, 2008, Skepticism
Apparently, there hasn't been universal regard for SecTreas Paulson's brilliant new idea to give away taxpayer money; a nice summary of the pushback is here at "Swamp Politics". At least one poll shows that the public opposes the Paulson bailout plan by a 37-28% plurality. And Krugman just gets to the nitty gritty of what's wrong with the bailout plan (hint: other than satisfying the need to "do something... anything," what's not wrong with it?).
Oh, does the unlimited discretion given to the Treasury Secretary beyond court or Congressional oversight... remind you of anything else that this Administration has pulled off, while waving the bloody shirt of 9-11? (I'm waiting for this to be called "the financial 9-11" by Bush himself.) Hey, stop whining, you damned whiners... if they can pull this off, that Treasury Secretary will soon be good old Phil Gramm himself.
No matter. The bad news is that markets today appeared chaotic, with an over 300 point drop in the (AIG-free!) Dow Jones Industrial Average... and good old oil went up by a record amount for one day of trading!
In short, the real problem that the insanely expensive and irresponsible "fix" is supposed to "fix," that being a potential collapse in stock prices and poll numbers for McCain-Palin, doesn't seem to be happening, even as negotiations continue on whether to take a dreadfully irresponsible giveaway to big business and finance and those who made abusive loans palatable by adding a dreadfully irresponsible giveaway to consumers many of whom deliberately took out loans they knew they couldn't repay (though at least, I'll say that predatory lending practices were rampant... and Congress, and I'm looking right at you Joe Biden, couldn't give a rat's ass about curtailing them.)
Oh well. I recall Bush saying, as he gleefully slashed taxes for the plutocrat class with the help of super-villain Alan Greenspan and a worthless Democratic "opposition"... "it's your money [my dear, beloved country club friends]." Well, no... it was all of our money, and the tax cuts ended up running up record deficits, which the rest of us will have to pay back in higher taxes and reduced government services. It's all of our money now... that "the bailout" will just go to running up deficits some more.
Giant blank checks to the Bush Administration anyone? What a great idea! It's always worked well before! Even though he says the world will end tomorrow if Congress doesn't give him what he wants, Treasury Secretary Paulson, ladies and gentlemen... he'll be here all week.