Sunday, September 28, 2008

Bailout deal reached

UPDATED & BUMPED: The text of the "discussion draft" is now online. After an initial read, Michelle Malkin is still against it.

UPDATE: Both Obama and McCain say they'll support the bill, despite widespread public opposition. Mike Pence is still opposed.

PREVIOUSLY: I'm still against it, but Republicans reportedly succeeded in improving the bill by stripping out the funding for ACORN and other left-wing groups. It's still a bad deal:
Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative agreement early Sunday on what may become the largest financial bailout in American history, authorizing the Treasury to purchase $700 billion in troubled debt from ailing firms in an extraordinary intervention to prevent widespread economic collapse. . . .
The bill includes pay limits for some executives whose firms seek help, aides said. And it requires the government to use its new role as owner of distressed mortgage-backed securities to make more aggressive efforts to prevent home foreclosures. (Emphasis added.)
Look, the $700 billion taxpayer bailout is required because the "owners" of these homes have not made their payments. Getting a mortgage and not making the payments is like shoplifting a house. If the "owners" -- many of whom secured mortgages based on fraudulent presentations of income they didn't have and debts they didn't disclose -- are in default, then those houses are the rightful property of the mortgage holders, and the "owners" are practically thieves.

The only way the investment can be recovered is by repossessing the houses and selling them to people who can pay. So "efforts to prevent home foreclosures" translates to "efforts to prevent recovering the investment from perpetrators of fraud." At some point, there must be accountability.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin:

I'd refer you to a copy of the bill, but…there is none.
And there won't be one for taxpayers to read and analyze for themselves before the bailout mob rushes to pass this unprecedented "rescue" of private industry on onday.
The Bipartisan Bailout Boondoggle of 2008. Y'know, it's not often that libertarians and "populists" are on the same side of an issue.

PREVIOUSLY:
9/27: Is Neil Cavuto racist?
9/26: Arnold Kling on the bailout
9/26: Ace going soft on Paulson plan?
9/26: ACORN bailout?
9/26: What caused the crisis?
9/26: No bailout, no debate?
9/25: Porking up the bailout bill
9/18: How Clinton caused the current crisis
9/17: Feeling the pain he helped cause
9/16: Jamie Gorelick & Fannie Mae

2 comments:

  1. Our Dear Leaders really should raise the Jolly Roger over the U.S. Capitol while they're passing their abominable bill to Rape the Constitution and Pillage the Taxpayers.

    (That is the first photo the NYT had up of those criminals this morning. They later replaced it with a much more somber one.)

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  2. If we let 20 milion or so NEW immigrants into the country, that would do a lot to get the economy and housing market back on track.

    Population increases drive economic growth. It is simple math and macro-economics.

    Of course, if we did this, it would allow our great elected leaders to continue to kick the cans down the road. Cans of course refers to the bombs known as social security, medicare ,state and local govt pensions, etc.

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