Bush Economic Bailout Plan. Go. No Go.

President George W. Bush spoke of dire circumstances in his speech on Wednesday night (read about it here). He invited the congressional leadership (house leader and senate majority leader, and the minority leadership), as well as, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama to the White House to summit on Thursday afternoon.

Prior to the meeting taking place, there were reports that an agreement had been reached. But during the meeting with the president, House Minority Leader John Boehner scuttled all progress with issues from conservative Republicans that negotiators thought had been settled. Boehner said that he needed more time to get agreement from House Republicans, a senior administration official said. Obama asked whether the House Republicans' proposals fit in with the four principles that the leadership had agreed on, but Boehner couldn't answer that, a Democratic source said.

Multiple sources said McCain didn't say much. Two Democratic leadership aides said he didn't speak until 43 minutes into the meeting.

The gist of the meeting, according to sources, was that these members "aren't there yet" on the plan the Senate Banking Committee worked out and say there needs to be greater protection for taxpayers. One Republican aide said that "not much has changed in the last 24 to 48 hours. I think it has to be pretty radically altered for House Republicans to support it."

This aide stressed, "at the end of the day, these members represent the people who sent them here, and the people who sent them here are so overwhelmingly opposed to this." This aide said the calls coming into GOP offices are 90 to 1 against the plan.

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The Bush Administration Plan:

• The Treasury will buy troubled assets from US-based financial institutions, with the primary target being mortgage-backed securities that have lost significant value because of foreclosures and declining home values
  
  
• The governement will hold on to these assets until the markets improve, then the Treasury would then sell the assets and potentially earn a profit
  
  
• The goal is that by taking the bad assets away from financial institutions will allow them to shore up their balance sheets and begin to lend money again
  

Obama's Conditions for Bailout:

• Help the "millions of families facing foreclosure" and not just Wall Street ("help Main Street as well as Wall Street")
  
  
• Create an "independent, bipartisan board to ensure accountability and complete transparency"
  
  
• Have Wall Street repay taxpauers for the bailout
  
  
• Have an independent, bipartisan board to oversee the bailout
  
  "This plan cannot be a welfare program for CEOs who greed and irresponsibility has contributed to this crisis."
  

McCain's Recommendations for the Bailout Plan:

• Allow for greater accountability, including a bipartisan board to "provide oversight of the rescue"
  
  
• Help for taxpayers to recover the $700 billion
  
  
• Complete transparency in regards to crafting and implementation of any legislation
  
  
• Cap on executive pay for companies getting federal help
  
  
• Ban on earmarks and pork barrel legislation added to this plan
  

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In a related story, JPMorgan Chase acquired the banking assets of Washington Mutual (WaMu) in a fire sale late Thursday after the troubled thrift was seized by federal regulators, marking the biggest bank failure in the nation's history and the latest stunning development in the ongoing credit crisis.

Under the deal, JPMorgan Chase will acquire all the banking operations of WaMu, including $307 billion in assets and $188 billion in deposits for a payment of $1.9 to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Separately, JPMorgan announced plans to raise $8 billion in additional capital through the sale of stock as part of the deal. Earlier this year, JPMorgan Chase acquired Bear Stearns.

Read what my friend over at Raw Dawg Buffalo wrote about this economic mess here.

Read the CNN.com article about Congress's efforts to get a bailout bill to the President here.

Read the CNN.com article about the contentious White House Meeting that included Obama & McCain here.

Read the CNNMoney.com article about how a deal draws closer here.

Read the New York Times article about how things fared at the White House with Obama & McCain here.

Read the CNNMoney.com article the JPMorgan purchase of WaMu here.


plez sez: so, john mccain suspended his campaign so that he could hang out at the white house and barely participate in the negotiations! he sits in a "contentious meeting" that is scuttled by his party for 43 minutes with no input, no leadership? isn't that reason why he was back in washington, to provide his leadership to this cause?

or was his campaign suspension a ploy for support from his base? or is he in cahoots with the fringe of his party in a backhanded attempt to scuttle these negotiations until the time for this debate passes? would john mccain go to such lengths to avoid debating barack obama? would john mccain go to such lengths to avoid having sarah palin debate joe biden? we'll all know the answer to these questions if he backs out of the debate on friday evening because of this "financial crisis" that he has done nothing to fix!

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it's funny that wall street perked up (jumping close to 200 points) when word was leaked that an agreement in principle had been reached. i wonder what will happen when the markets open on friday when it appears that some republicans have torpedoed the agreement with eleventh hour demands that will preclude an agreement before the weekend.

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believe it or not, plezWorld isn't a big advocate for welfare. i don't agree with it for poor people. and i am certainly against spending taxpayer money to prop up rich folk. but in the interest of the public good and the avoidance of a financial catastrophe, i think we can spare a trillion dollars!

but this money should be attached to strings. those "fat cats" on wall street, yeah, the ones who basically pimped and embezzeled the deregulated financial markets for personal gain over the past 2 decades while the economy tanked should be looking at some severe punitive action for their malfeasance. a whole bunch of new asses need to be preparing for a 5- to 10-year sentence in the nearest penitentiary (i heard Sing Sing has a few open beds)!

to be honest, if 100 CEO's and CFO's and C-insert_letter_here-O's made their way into the united states penal system as collateral for this big ass welfare check for wall street (700 billion bills), instead of their usual golden parachutes... i'd be one happy camper. plezWorld would be first to call and congratulate his congressman for growing a pair!

this bailout should be painful (jail time, selling off of personal assets, confiscation of houses, jewelry, off-shore property, and cars, liquidation of trust funds, etc.). the fat cats on wall street should be shaking in their boots at the thought that the Feds were gonna come bail them out. and if this bailout was painful enough, it would be a LONG TIME before some *ISH* like this was ever permitted to happened again!