Saturday, September 20, 2008

News Bits and Bites

Some bits of news require either no comment or minimal comment. From today's New York Times:

President Bush discussed the government’s financial bailout proposal during a news conference at the White House on Saturday.

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.

Yup, they know what they're doing domestically, too.

...and one more headline, needing no comment:

Debate Pact Will Let McCain and Obama Spar

The presidential debates will follow a free-flowing format, but John McCain’s campaign insisted on more structure for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s debate with Sarah Palin.
Yup, she's ready to rumble.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you can ask people like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank what is going on:

From 2003 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

"The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac"

However who wanted to stop it?

"''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

‘’I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,’’ Mr. Watt said."

As you can see... certain people wanted to make sure that loans were given out to people who could NOT afford it.