US 'Economic Stimulus' Budget Review

[LittleGrizzly]

Possibly just reading too much into it... or looking at it the wrong way. For example the feb '01 recession probably wasn't helped by 9/11...

A more positive way to look at it would be the recent recessions seem to involve less of a downturn, amd the dec'07 one is one of the shortest recessions on there...

[Don Corleone]

I'd like to shift gears for a moment and discuss the 2nd half of the financial bailout that Tim Geithner announed yesterday.

So, after weeks of hearing we need the money, but we need more oversight, more clarity... Barney Frank promising he's going to watch every nickel personally... he goes up to the Hill and... pulls a Paulson "Just give me the money... we need it and I can't tell you yet where it's going".

A couple of I think common sense questions...

-Everyone and his brother knows Geithner is putting together a bad bank. Why doesn't he just come out and say it? It can't be worse than the speculation.

-Why isn't Hank Paulson in jail? As far as I can tell, he told everyone he understood their concerns but would do what was necessary to keep the public plugged in. He then turned around and handed out $350B to his buddies at Citbank, Morgan Stanley and the like... I guess the CEO of Lehman Brothers wasn't one of Hank's buddies.

-Why does anyone have any hope that there will be more oversight on Treasury this time around? I'm not going to argue that it was the Bush Treasury department that stole $350 billion, it was. But wasn't Barney Frank chairman of the House Financial Services comittee last year? Wasn't he tasked with oversight of Paulson, especially on where TARP was going? Is there any reason to believe he's going to be more intrusive, more regulatory on the a Treasury Secretary that's part of a Democratic administration?

It just doesn't make any sense on any of this. Hank Paulson stole $350B. Tim Geithner is acting as though he expects the right to do the same. And Barney Frank is standing in the town square, pompously proclaiming "Twust me.. this time I'll get it wight"

[Don Corleone]

P.S. Wall Street was so impressed with Mr. Geithner's proverbial 'turd on the floor', indices dropped over 5% yesterday on the news, on broad concerns (i.e. across all sectors).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

-Why isn't Hank Paulson in jail? As far as I can tell, he told everyone he understood their concerns but would do what was necessary to keep the public plugged in. He then turned around and handed out $350B to his buddies at Citbank, Morgan Stanley and the like... I guess the CEO of Lehman Brothers wasn't one of Hank's buddies.

Paulson got Congress to pass, and the President to sign, a bill giving him virtually unlimited authority to do whatever he wanted with the money short of putting it, directly at least, into his own retirement account. When he changed the ostensible plan, 15 minutes after receiving the money, he was met with a chorus of "Hey, wait a minute"'s to which he responded, "It's okay, I know better." Their response to this wondrous approach was to say, "okay." They then did what they really wanted which was to shelve it and get back to their districts for the October races. There is no jail option unless you indict at least 536 co-conspirators.

-Why does anyone have any hope that there will be more oversight on Treasury this time around? I'm not going to argue that it was the Bush Treasury department that stole $350 billion, it was. But wasn't Barney Frank chairman of the House Financial Services comittee last year? Wasn't he tasked with oversight of Paulson, especially on where TARP was going? Is there any reason to believe he's going to be more intrusive, more regulatory on the a Treasury Secretary that's part of a Democratic administration?

Now these are good "questions." Not really questions of course, as you already know the answers.

[drone]

The Democratic leadership in Congress needs to be changed, a revolt within the party is needed to get more competent leadership in place. Pelosi may have been a good minority leader, but she does not have the ability to run the show. I knew as soon as Bush asked for "$700B, no oversight, immediately to avert disaster, disagree and you're a terrorist", it was a bad idea, he had used this tactic several times before. Yet they still caved, even when they had control. Deja vu.

The bankers get to face Congress today, should make for a good dog and pony show, with much vitriol from the lawmakers to show their constituents they are outraged. I'd give anything for the bankers to grill back why the TARP funds were not legislated with oversight in the first place. The look on Barney's face would be priceless.