The government bail-out...

[mouseferatu]

The complete text of the proposal for the bail-out plan can be found at the New York times, here.

However, you needn't necessarily read the whole thing. There are just two salient points I want to bring up. These are copied and pasted, without change except for emphasis:

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time

That's a hell of a lot of money. Now, let's jump ahead to section 8.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

I want you to reread the section I've bolded. Then reread it again.

And then tell me if this is the government any of us meant to elect in the past few elections, no matter who you voted for.

Comments

[amokk]

Fun. The courts can overrule it though, if it gets to them.

[goobermunch.livejournal.com]

Maybe. There's a slight Article 3, section 2 problem though. The Constitution sets out the jurisdiction and powers of each branch of government. Article 3 addresses the jurisdiction of the courts. The relevant portion of the article, section two provides, "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." (emphasis added).

This permits Congress to limit the Court's jurisdiction. So if Congress passes the bill, and the President signs it, arguably there's no jurisdiction. And there's no Constitutional problem with the jurisdictional limitation, because it's a power that the Constitution explicitly gives to Congress.

--G

[amokk]

Yes, but Judicial Review came later, and it's considered Constitutional. Previous bills that have had the "no court can review this" clause have subsequently been struck down by the courts.

That's the trick of SCOTUS getting to decide if written laws are Constitutional or not; they just get to play the Judicial Review card, strike it down, and move along. No one (yet) is ballsy enough to try and challenge Judicial Review itself.

[friadoc.livejournal.com]

It is annoying enough that we are bailing out companies that may have given an equal amount in bonuses to their management that it is taking to bail them out, but then to have the bail out say that it is beyond oversight is asinine. I mean, seriously, is this just a snicker filled joke, with them hiding on the other side of the door waiting for us to scream?

Hopefully this will get slapped around for awhile and some common sense gets applied to it, but damn if we do not need some change to how things are done right now. Parties aside, something is massively broken, on the scale of robber barons broken, and it needs to be fixed.

That proposal is fucking scary.

[jltraut.livejournal.com]

I'm with Senator Bernie Sanders (http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303313) on this one. "We must end the danger posed by companies that are “too big too fail,” that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. "

Now if only we could count on Congress and the Senate to stand up with him.... Though with their track record, I hold out little hope.

Re: That proposal is fucking scary.

[friadoc.livejournal.com]

Good luck on that one, it's like getting the crack whore to turn on their dealer. Sure, they'll talk a good game, but unless you're now the rock supplier for them, they ain't flipping on anyone.

Re: That proposal is fucking scary.

[josephbrowning.livejournal.com]

Yep. There shouldn't be companies "too big to fail" because it's not in our national interests nor should there be such large leverage amounts. I've been reading about financial crises and it looks like pretty much everyone of the happened when things were going good so that extended leverage looked that a sure-fire way to increase profitability.

Of course, when things turn downward, as they always will, the razor-thin line of adaptability created by such large leverage results in a big crash. Sort of the financial equivalent of a specialist creature when the environment changes just slightly for the worse.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

I try that argument sometime and they kinda just stare at me. "Civil what-erties? Whats and balances?"

[lowapproach.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* As was said above, the nice thing about being the Court is that you get to determine the constitutionality of any law that may come before you in a given case.

I understand next to nothing about how the financial sector is regulated, but the fact that they included administrative agencies tells me that Paulson's authority is meant to cut across the purviews of several, probably even his own sub-agencies whose standard operating procedures will be offended in some way by this exercise of power.

If it had been a Democrat in office, I'd like to think that better oversight would have made a difference, but as it is, I'm a little upset that they are fine with letting individual homeowners fail but not the insurance company who made a gigantic bet on them doing so.

[friadoc.livejournal.com]

While it seems that a lot of aspects of this proposal are still being discussed, including oversight (thankfully), it does seem that various foreign banks are also included as potentially qualified for bailout. So, not only are we saving our incompetent rich folk, but other nation's, too.

You know, while I enjoy, sometimes even believe, in a conspiracy theory, now and then, I've always laughed off the banking ones. Wouldn't it be a real kicker if that one is one of those that ends up seeming more true?

[doctorcaligari.livejournal.com]

It hurts, it hurts bad. May very well be the lesser of the two evils though.

IF the Democrats don't roll over too much on attaching at least a couple provisos like the ones they want to attach for limiting golden parachutes and helping out homeowners. This is going to be a bit of a big game of chicken, with the Republicans going "WE GOTTA PASS IT NOW, HURRY UP!" and the Democrats going "YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GOTTA, AND WE'LL HURRY UP WHEN YOU COUGH UP."

If they roll over, I will weep.

Pray that we a) get enough Dems to do the job and b) actually *get* them to do their job in November, passing stuff that will provide the sort of transparency needed to keep this crap from happening again.

Hell, maybe there'll even be some Republicans shocked enough to help out.

[chunger.livejournal.com]

And then tell me if this is the government any of us meant to elect in the past few elections, no matter who you voted for.

I just started reading this...but wanted to share. It's an analysis of Bush in the last eight years...

http://www.esquire.com/features/what-bush-meant-1008

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

"Bad policy," President Bush said. "If I decide to do it, by definition it's good policy. I thought you got that."

Good holy Christ...