[Barney Frank’s bill, H.R. 4173] supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around.
Best of all, the bill contains a provision that, in the event of another government request for emergency aid to prop up the financial system, debate in Congress be limited to just 10 hours.
Hahahahahaha.
1) the next crisis is inevitable, and the elites know it
2) they don’t intend to get stuck with the bill
3) Barney Frank is a whore. I find it funny that Dodd’s the one in trouble, because Frank is far far worse, and has been all along. He’s also smart enough to know exactly what he’s doing.
S Brennan
From my Facebook;
Barney Frank, likable…always quick on the uptake, but he’s got some…uhm…ethics issues. Yeah, there was the page scandal in the early 80’s, it was serious, but they didn’t have a smoking gun. Then there was running a prostitution service from his residence in the late 80’s, not so serious [ask Heidi Fleishman], but they had conclusive proof. But darn it to hell Frank, promising to give 4 TRILLION taxpayer dollars to the guys that just got 2 TRILLION of our dough in the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is going too far. We are not talking about $20,000.00 in postage stamps here bubba.
Younger, or more sensitive readers may wish to wear waders, gloves and breathing protection while reading this article.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a48c8UpUMxKQ
The Raven
Croak of the evening!
Cujo359
This bit from the Bloomberg article just seems emblematic:
Typically, this sort of position is done by civil servants or contractors – not appointees. To be effective, they need to have at least some assurance that they won’t be fired for doing their jobs.
Anyway, just a detail that’s wrong in a plan that has plenty else wrong.
BDBlue
Further evidence that the Democrats are not, in fact, weak or, for that matter, stupid. They see what’s going on, know where we’re headed and are preparing for it.
Isn’t it funny (most definitely not in the ha-ha way) that while they nickel and dime us over stimulus and healthcare and give us only a job summit rather than jobs, they have no problems committing an additional $4 trillion to the banks, just as they have no problem funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? There’s always more money for what they care about, which is almost never the American people.
I think Barney Frank does a nice job of covering up his corruption by using tough “liberal” talk so that he doesn’t sound like the corporate toady he is. And, of course, just as Obama gets help from the right calling him a socialist, the right also helps Frank by painting him as some great liberal. Because Frank definitely deserves a strong primary challenge, but I doubt he’ll ever get it.
Ian Welsh
Well some of them are weak, and some of them are stupid, but the guys who run the place like Barney are neither, they’re corrupt and evil.
Lex
Fuck me, with friends like the Democrats i’m starting to feel more comfortable with my enemies.
BDBlue
True, Ian, about some of the Democrats being stupid and/or weak, but most of them don’t matter a whole helluva lot. They tend to fall in line behind the evil, corrupt ones (although I suppose I would put some of the evil, corrupt ones in the stupid camp as well, but they don’t tend to be the party leaders).
This preparation for the next disaster ties in with the link I dropped here a couple of days ago about the proposed SEC rules that would permit money market funds to suspend redemptions for the orderly liquidation of assets. Taking these two proposals together, essentially what’s going to happen in the next crisis is that the big financial players will get a huge amount of pre-approved money from the Fed AND be able to keep Americans’ money on deposit in their accounts for at least a little while to ensure “order”. Moreover, in both instances, the Government seems to take it for granted that there will be another crisis – the banks will need more money, there will be more bank runs. And, as you note, they’re making sure the rich don’t get stuck with the bill.
TW Andrews
Fuck me, I’m getting the fuck out of this goddamn country posthaste.
lambert strether
Speaking of Barney Sausage…
Bolo
Numerian has a new post up at the Agonist, worrying that some major stock market players may be sounding the alarm:
http://agonist.org/numerian/20100105/who_is_trashing_high_yield_bond_funds_and_why_should_you_care
b.
Here’s is the flip side:
“Put simply, in a single, coordinated stroke, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have encroached on spending powers that are enumerated for the Congress alone. Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), the Treasury has no such open-ended authority. Indeed, the applicable portion of the Act explicitly limits the total amount of mortgage principal (not losses, but total principal)…”
[..]
“What will be a game-changer is if Congress fails to recognize that the Treasury’s action is at minimum an evasion, and possibly a usurpation of powers that are enumerated to Congress alone. If Congress does not forcefully defend that prerogative – even if it ultimately ends up voting for exactly the same policy – it will have relinquished the power of fiscal policymaking into the hands of unelected bureaucrats.”
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc100104.htm
anonymous
I lived in DC during Barney’s scandal (was the name Gooby?). He was a very real embarrassment to gays, and to me personally as a closeted one.
And for the last few years I have always got a sinking feeling every time I find out he is on the wrong side of trying to deal with the r/e bubble and then the credit crises. Sure, he gets a few jabs in at the right from time to time (although they might sound better if he wasn’t so fat that it gives him a speech impediment). But overall, I just feel embarrassed and profoundly disappointed as a liberal.
minstrel hussain boy
it’s a strange and sad commentary on the times when the most salient writings and commentary i find for the political situation come from jean-paul marat, maximillian robespierre, and jacques-georges danton.
maybe marat was right, a few more thousand heads rolling in the square might have done the trick…
i’m amazed that we haven’t reached the torch and pitchfork stage of this.
probably though it will end, like frost’s world, not with a bang, but a whimper.
sad that.
tjfxh
I can see the banksta’s licking their chops at this new pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and figuring on how they will engineer snaring it by making the maximum on the way up and then threatening to blow themselves up on the way down.