Black Monday?

[Crewleader]

Global Investors Vote "No" on Paulson Bailout

By MIKE WHITNEY

The wrangling continued on the floor of the House of Representatives all weekend, but it is still unclear whether there's enough support to pass Treasury Secretary Paulson's $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Paulson says he has the votes, but Paulson has been wrong before. The bigger question, is whether buying up the illiquid mortgage-backed assets from the nation's banks will be enough to save the financial system from an impending meltdown. The jury is out on that question, too. Professor Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics, summed it up like this, "You're not resolving the two fundamental issues: You still have to recapitalize the banking system, and household debt is going to stay high". A large number of economists believe Roubini is right. The bill will not solve the underlying problems.

Still, senators and congressmen are expected to hold their noses and pass Paulson's bailout into law anyway, fearing that if they don't, the country's financial system will come crashing down around them. They could be right, too. The banking system is undercapitalized, the credit markets are frozen, and foreign creditors are beginning to slow their purchases of US debt. It's all bad. At the same time the number of casualties among the financial giants--Bear Stearns, Indymac, AIG, Lehman, Washington Mutual--continues to grow. Three more struggling European banks were added to the list of financial institutions that needed emergency government assistance this past weekend. It's no wonder Congress feels like they have to do something to stop the bleeding.

Before the stock market opened on Monday, the futures markets had slumped heavily into negative territory, while the TED spread, an indicator of stress in interbank lending, had widened to 3.19, a level that suggests another rocky week of trading ahead. Could this be another Black Monday?

http://www.counterpunch.org/

[earthside]

1. U.S House is a Disgrace to Democracy

U.S. House of Representatives is going to be voting on final passage of the BIG Bush Bailout Plan very shortly. A trillion dollars to bailout Wall Street introduced, 'debated' and voted on in THREE HOURS.

The message from the Democrat and radical Republican leaders of the House is loud and clear: "American taxpayers, sit down and shut up!"

An absolute disgrace.

[Crewleader]

2. An absolute disgrace indeed!

[lib2DaBone]

3. I've been watching C-SPAN Debate All Day.....

...and the debate on this sounds EXACTLY like the Iraq war vote. The Dems are going along because of fear of making a mistake. Barney Frank said, "The tax payers are not going to lose a dime and if we don't act now you will lose all your money in your 401K" I like Barney and he's a good Dem... but What a croc of BS. :puke:


The Dems are being clipped like sheep. Not only are we going to have a Depression.. we are going to end up $700 Billion poorer in the process.


"The risk of Not acting is much higher than the risk of acting", said John Boehner. (Oh jeezuz.. isn't this how we got into Iqaq... the mosy costly war in the history of the U.S. ?)

[Crewleader]

4. final vote results

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 674: THE BANKER BONUS BAILOUT BILL
(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/roll674.html