Sunday, September 21, 2008

Fisking The Plan

Michael Shedlock comments on this burgeoning atrocity.

excerpt:

Democrats Want To Expand The Bailout

"We're going to be buying up a lot of mortgage paper," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Between Fannie Mae and Freddie now owned by the federal government and the mortgage paper we'll be acquiring here" and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. running failed bank IndyMac Bancorp Inc., "we should now be able substantially to reduce foreclosures," he said.

My Comment: Barney Frank is an incompetent socialist fool. Buying mortgages in and of itself will not prevent a single foreclosure. All buying mortgages will do is bail out the banks holding those mortgages. And one thing you can be most certain of is that it will be a selective bailout with no oversight as to who gets bailed out or why.

The Treasury plans to hire asset managers to purchase the assets through so-called reverse auctions, seeking the lowest prices, one of the people said. Congress will need to raise the limit for the federal debt to allow the government to borrow enough to fund the program, the person said.

Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who has advocated that markets should be allowed to penalize bad bets, warned that bailout could saddle taxpayers with large debts.

"This could be the biggest bailout in the history of the country and could ultimately cost $500 billion to $1 trillion," Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. "Congress is not going to rubber stamp something."

My Comment: The odds of Congress not rubber stamping this are very slim.

Senator Christopher Dodd, the Banking Committee chairman, said the plan's framers should consider the full debt load of U.S. consumers, possibly including credit cards.

My Comment: Hells bells why not? Let's throw in credit cards, auto loans, boats, and casino debts? Why stop at credit cards and housing? Let's just have the government guarantee every debt in the country.

The temporary plan is likely to include a "second stimulus" proposal with infrastructure funds, low-income energy aid and Medicaid assistance, Frank said.

My Comment: Why stop at two? Why not four? Hell, let's just give everyone $1,000,000 and be done with it.

No comments: