W.H. spokesman Tony Fratto: The "unthinkable" could happen if bailout isn't approved by end of week

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/congress.bailout.reax/index.html

The changes being floated include adding oversight of the program by an independent board, helping homeowners who are facing foreclosure, allowing the government to take an equity stake in the companies it helps, and limiting the CEO pay of companies that are aided by the bailout to the $400,000 salary of the top elected official in the land: the president.

An aide to Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said negotiators had agreement on an oversight board and some form of help for homeowners facing foreclosure. The aide said the negotiators were "not there yet" on whether the government could take a stake in the companies it help.

CEOs of companies aided by the taxpayers could continue to bring down multimillion-dollar salaries, and that has sparked widespread anger on Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that if the bailout passes, "the party is over" for the companies that it helps.

"The party is over for this compensation for CEOs who take the golden parachute as they drive their companies into the ground. ... The party is over for financial institutions taking risks at the same time privatizing any gain they may have while they nationalize the risk, asking the taxpayer to pick up the tab," Pelosi said.



When asked by a reporter what would happen to the economy if the measure were not passed by the end of the week, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, "I think you should think of that as unthinkable."

"I mean, every business, every employer and so every employee in America depends every day on the flow of money coming through our financial system to sustain their normal business operations," Fratto said.

However, many lawmakers on both the left and the right are asking how they can justify risking $700 billion of the taxpayers' money to help out Wall Street when many Americans are hurting economically.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Tough! Us little people miss a payment to our credit card, WE PAY - no bailouts for the wealthy by

the middle class.

[aquamarina]

2. This is bullshit on a stick.

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. Problem is, that is the same stick...

... being used to beat the average American to a bloody pulp.

[MadrasT]

3. Didn't they originally say it had to be done by, um, yesterday?

:shrug:

[CJCRANE]

4. The unthinkable already happened

five times before breakfast with Bushco in charge.

[Solly Mack]

5. Nah..the unthinkable took place on December 12, 2000

and every day since then has been a nightmare

but really...once you think something... how can it be the unthinkable?

[hisownpetard]

6. Classic Bush ploy. Quick!! Pass this Patriot Act STAT or else, if we get blown up, it'll be YOUR

FAULT! Nasty stupid Democrats, party poopers, get with the program NOW!

Don't ask question; just trust me!

I'm late, I'm late,
for a very important date!
No time to say hello - Good-bye! -
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

[Eric J in MN]

7. There is no crisis says David Cay Johnston.

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13611

Ask this question -- are the credit markets really about to seize up?

If they are then lots of business owners should be eager to tell how their bank is calling their 90-day revolving loans, rejecting new loans and demanding more cash on deposit. I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.

Johnston is an author and NY Times reporter on financial matters.

[AzDar]

19. My Dear, if I may... this post would make an excellent OP (if you haven't already)

:hi:

[Eric J in MN]

22. another poster just put this into its own thread NT

NT

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. The unthinkable is about to happen to your party, Mr. Farto.

[Raven]

9. Do not fucking threaten me you little shit! Oops, sorry, I must have

lost my head but...I think I still have my wallet. These people are just the cheapest, crappiest, smarmiest, oiliest...

[grannie4peace]

10. whhoooo

he reminds me of a mafia guy !!!

[EndElectoral]

11. "This is scare tactics to try to do something that's in the private but not the public interest,"

- said by Allan Meltzer, a former economic adviser to President Reagan, and an expert on monetary policy at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. "It's terrible."

"There's a tendency for people to think these are stocks and bonds and you know what the price is," said Bruce Bartlett, a former White House economist under President Reagan. "The problem is people are operating in a world in which nobody knows what the hell is going on. There's some naïve assumptions about how this would function."

"It's a straight subsidy to financial institutions," said Martin Baily, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration, and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "You're essentially giving them money."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

14. It's great to hear Bruce Bartlett speak out on this...

...he's been responsible for several long, detailed dissections of the "Fair Tax / National Sales Tax" and the hidden land mines sprinkled throughout the promises to "do away with the I.R.S."

:patriot:

[screembloodymurder]

13. It's extortion.

I want to hear the unthinkable. Whose government is this?

[central scrutinizer]

15. unthinkable = huge lead for Obama

if they get the Democrats to capitulate, the blame can be successfully passed. This is a high stakes game of hot potato or musical chairs.

[Gin]

17. I wasn't sure if the situation was as dire as they said ....and after watching the hearings

I believe the threat was exaggerated because the Congress goes home Friday and they want to drain the treasury while they are still in DC.

This has been discussed for months. Paulson stated he was getting ideas from lots of sources on how to proceed.

[BanzaiBonnie]

16. Would the unthinkable...

be something like a mushroom cloud?


I don't doubt we are in for some hard times. It's going to be painful. But sending $700 billion to these companies is like good money after bad and could set off an even worse cascade of events in our economy.

[quiet.american]

18. So exactly *what* is the unthinkable--they start up the Hadron Collider again and blow up the world?

[BeyondGeography]

20. And we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud

:scared:

[stillcool]

21. Pay up or you're dead..

I thought we didn't deal with terrorists.