Vox Popoli

A press release from Congressman Thaddeus McCotter’s office prior to the vote:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Republican House Policy Chairman, Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), the first Republican member of Congress to publicly oppose Wall Street’s trillion dollar bailout, remains adamantly opposed to the legislation despite the Paulson bailout’s cosmetic changes:

“We are faced with the first financial panic of the global economy. Thus, the Congressional action taken today will set a precedent affecting the prosperity of Americans for decades to come. The proposed $700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout bill is not a Republican solution; it is not a Democratic solution; it is not an
American solution. The proposed $700 billion dollar Wall Street Bailout is a socialist solution – one that, by threatening hardworking Americans’ prosperity, unconscionably ransoms hardworking Americans’ money and reduces their liberty. As such, it is a generational threat to Americans’ liberty and prosperity.

Congress cannot re-inflate the bubble to save the American economy.”

I just thought the dude deserved a victory lap, since he certainly kicked some ass on behalf of America’s economic liberty today. And based on that last bit about what Congress can’t do, (as opposed to what it shouldn’t do), I’m guessing he’s more Austrian than Keynesian.

UPDATE – The congressman sends another email:

It is time for the President of the United States to:

Calm the Congressional and global investor panic his administration has exacerbated.

Demand the resignation of Treasury Secretary Paulson, who no longer serves a constructive role in the enactment of the legislation necessary to end this period financial difficulty and uncertainty.

Deputize and dispatch a new representative to the Congressional negotiations, such as former Treasury Secretary James A. Baker, III, who has credibility with both markets, Congress, markets and, most importantly the American public.

Rule out pushing a financial recapitalization model based upon taxpayers purchasing ‘toxic assets’ from financial institutions, which the American public rightful believes unjust.

I’m not keen on that Baker notion, but the rest of it is eminently reasonable, even if I would have preferred to see him call for something rather more TV-friendly than mere resignation for Mr. Paulson. The key thing is to understand that Congress should not do ANYTHING, because anything it does will make the situation worse. Well, anything it’s remotely likely to do, anyway. The reason Wall Street’s demise won’t harm the economy anywhere nearly as much as everyone seems to think is quite simple. Wall Street doesn’t fund any actual productive investment anyhow!

Entrepeneurship and freedom create wealth. Borrowing money doesn’t, they’re like steroids, enabling unnaturally fast development that will kill the user more often than not.

Here’s the text of the deal to which everyone, but a number of House Republicans, apparently, agreed last night.

UPDATE – notes on a Treasury call to most favored investors:

1) If even the Treasury is saying tranching is a formality, then it really is nothing. Not sure why Dems fought so hard for a fig leaf.

2) Waiting a couple of weeks because no one has any idea when or where the next bomb will blow up. In other words, all their doomsday scenarios about Black Monday were B.S. They screamed the check had to be written by Monday, but now they’re saying they actually have a few weeks before they need to cash it. Plus, this will allow them to “seek guidance” from GS, JPM, and other selfless public servants about where the money should be funneled.

3. The tap dancing is because they don’t want it to get out that they’ll be giving a sweetheart deal. The public won’t be following each individual transaction to see exactly what price is being paid. So ridiculously overpriced asset sales can be hidden in the details, and by the time some reporter (or blogger 🙂 combs through and analyzes the transactions, the deed will have been done. But if Paulson makes a statement that assets will be bought at par before the bailout’s even begun, that will be reported and might kill the deal.

4. In other words, we need to sweeten the pot to encourage banks to come “voluntarily”. Pardon my ignorance, but why the hell should we be begging banks to borrow from us? I thought a bailout should be the absolute last option for a bank. I.e., it should be so unpalatable, so unprofitable for a bank and its executives that they exhaust every private means of survival before coming for their public “reaming”. I wonder if foreclosed homeowners would rate their foreclosure process as “user friendly”.

5. Of course the exec comp provisions are a joke. Who do you think is going to be hiring all those banking cmte staffers and newly retired congresspeople next year during the inevitable post-election turnover? Do you really think they’re going to vote to limit their salaries? Remember that for lots of people on the Hill (including elected reps), govt work is merely time you spend accumulating credentials in preparation for your real life’s work in the vastly richer private world.

UPDATE II – 226 against to 207 for. It’s dead for now. But how long will it take Wall Street to convince Washington to pull a Brussels and start the vote-until-you-get-it-right process? My guess is that since stomping their feet didn’t work, now they’ll try holding their breath, in other words, doing their best to bomb the markets before swooping in with another emergency plan.

The question is, how much leeway do they have?

UPDATE III – There’s our answer. It’s the Brussels option. Congressman Boehner just declared “We need to renew our efforts.” Question: can America get a restraining order on these jokers? No one is going to come around simply because Wall Street’s representation has gone all stalkery on us.

The bailout crew looks pretty pleased. This cannot bode well. Pretty soon they’re going to start just screwing with everyone’s minds just for the hell of it.

Frank: “Unleth you wear your underwear on your head AND give the firtht plumber you thee a hummer, the economy will melt next Thurthday! Oooh, thscaweeee! Tho, put your damn underwear on your damn headth, idioth, do it now!”

Pelosi: “HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!”

Paulson: (to himself) “The fat little flamer made a funny. Ah ha ha. But how does one profit from improperly positioned underwear and felahteo? No wonder his rent boy ring went under. Damned amateur couldn’t even sell sex while I brought in 250 big ones in cash just by saying ‘boo’. God, what a freak show. I cannot get out of here soon enough.”

Reid: “This should kill McCain dead. And when he dies, I want to wrap his waxy, white, paper-thin skin around my head like a turban. And I shall wear Sarah Palin’s underwear – no, that sexy red Alaskan swimsuit!”

Pelosi: “HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!”

Dodd: “Don’t forget to tape your nipples, Harry. Oh sweet Sir Alan Greenspan, I do so love sodomizing Republicans! In a perfect world we would all be wearing giant lubricated condoms over our whole bodies right now!”

Paulson: (into cell phone) “Janis, call Lloyd over at Goldman and tell that damned miser the bidding starts at 100 mil per and a five percent share. Gross, not net. Offer on the desk by Friday; my work here is done.

Pelosi: “HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!”

Obama: John, the fact is the surge was itself a remedy for failed military policies of this administration, policies which you supported. You have supported this president 90 percent of the time!

McCain: Jim, my opponent knows that’s not true. I have never supported President Bush. I have undermined President Bush, just ask any Republican! I have always been disloyal to this president, a disloyal, untrustworthy, unreliable renegade who has abandoned my party when it most needed me. The fact is, you simply can’t count on John McCain. That’s why on November 4th, the American people will elect me their next president.

This is one of the best skits SNL has done in years. They finally seem to realize that it’s funnier to go after both sides.

81 Alamo City Spartans
49 Mounds View Meerkats

71 Judean Peoples Front
56 Winston Reverends

69 Masonville Marauders
69 Silver Spooners

66 Greenfield Grizzlies
57 Burns Redbeards

53 Valders Valkyries
51 Black Mouth Curs

I finally got Madden 2009 this week – Spacebunny actually went out and got it for me – and the first thing I did with the Vikings in franchise mode was to trade Jared Allen and Tarvaris Jackson to Cleveland for Derek Anderson. I would have taken Brady Quinn, but Anderson was available and despite his struggles this year, I think he’s a legitimate NFL starter, if not necessarily a reliable All-Pro. Seriously, though, what NFL coach thinks that you can expect to win on a regular basis without an above-average quarterback? Sure, the Ravens won a Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer, but they did it as a wild card and with one of the best defenses of all time. And Dilfer wasn’t even that awful; people tend to forget that he had a 77.5 rating the three years before he played for Baltimore and a 76.6 rating in the 11 games he played that year. In those four seasons, he threw 65 TD and 48 INT. That may not win you a whole lot of games, but it won’t lose you many either.

The Tarvaris Jackson Experiment’s career rating? 66.0 with 12 TD and 17 INT. Even a solid defense can’t overcome that.

I didn’t watch it. If you did, feel free to fill me in on who you thought won, and why.

01% – Give the bankers what they say they need to rescue the economy. (9)

56% – Ignore the bankers and let the crisis solve itself. (587)

43% – Guillotine the greedy bastards. (455)

1051 votes

So I got an email from an aide to one of the House Republicans on the Financial Services Committee; apparently he’s available for interviews about the financial situation. What questions would you all like to see me ask him, assuming I can arrange it?

John Hawkins interviews Sen. Jim Demint about the bailout:

JH: I can tell you that people are furious about this. I know at my blog, I did a poll and 85% of the people opposed this. People think they’re being asked to throw their money away on a massive scale to pay the bills for people who behaved irresponsibly. Are they right?

JD: They’re exactly right. People are mad. I am getting hundreds of calls a day and it’s 100 to 1 against this. …Even banks like BB&T say that they don’t want this because they know what it means: the government is going to get involved in their business whether they take their money or not….

So, people have every right to be angry and that anger needs to continue…. We’ve seen that Americans getting angry and involved helped us defeat this whole amnesty proposal and it helped us spotlight wasteful earmarks, which we’re making some progress on. It has brought the energy issue to the point where we have backed the Democrats down from this drilling moratorium. We’re making progress on this bailout.

…The problem we have politically is that the President wants this so that he’s not the President who presides over a catastrophe. He’s willing to give the Democrats all the regulations and intrusions in the market that they want if they will help him pass it.

Basically, everyone with even a shred of common sense is against the Bailouts for Bankers plan, except, of course, the larger part of the conservative commentariat, which demonstrates once more that it is far too comfortably in bed with Washington to be taken seriously by any actual conservatives. Between the political leadership of George Bush and the media leadership of National Review, is it any wonder that the Republican brand looks about as good as Union Carbide’s post-Bhopal?

“To preserve their [the people’s] independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude” – Thomas Jefferson

I completely agree with Thomas Jefferson; in my view, the attempted bailout must be shouted down. The reckless air of entitlement demonstrated by veteran Wall Street champions like Larry Kudlow – who seriously states that he cannot support a bailout if limits are placed on executive compensation because that would “represent a huge first step into government interference” – is unbelievable. How would THAT be the FIRST step considering that this is the fifth federal intervention this year alone? Keep in mind that the very men demanding that Congress pillage the taxpayers on their behalf are precisely the same men who paid themselves 38 billion in bonuses just last year – let them bail their corporations out of their own pockets, not ours. If they’re so desperate for a bailout, then why doesn’t the government simply take that 38 billion and use it for the initial funding? Taking ten years of bonus money from the Wall Street crew would provide more than half the funds supposedly required.

UPDATE – “Britain’s five leading high street banks have as much as £95.3 billion ($175 billion) of distressed assets on their books that may qualify for the American bailout scheme.” I don’t know about you, but I suspect the average American doesn’t truly give the smallest damn that can be detected on a helium ion microscope if a British or Indonesian bank happens to lose money on its investments.