[spot5050]

Here's some extracts from the legislation summary...

Section 2. Purposes.
====================
Provides authority to the Treasury Secretary to restore liquidity and stability to the U.S. financial system and to ensure the economic well-being of Americans.

Section 101. Purchases of Troubled Assets.
==========================================
Authorizes the Secretary to establish a Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”) to purchase troubled assets from financial institutions.

Section 115. Graduated Authorization to Purchase.
=================================================
Authorizes the full $700 billion as requested by the Treasury Secretary for implementation of TARP. Allows the Secretary to immediately use up to $250 billion in authority under this Act. Upon a Presidential certification of need, the Secretary may access an additional $100 billion. The final $350 billion may be accessed if the President transmits a written report to Congress requesting such authority. The Secretary may use this additional authority unless within 15 days Congress passes a joint resolution of disapproval which may be considered on an expedited basis.

No need to worry tho, because clause 134 means it won't cost you American taxpayers a dime...

Section 134. Recoupment.
========================
Requires that in 5 years, the President submit to the Congress a proposal that recoups from the financial industry any projected losses to the taxpayer.

So in summary, the legislation authorises the secretary to spend $0.7tn of future US taxpayers money now. In other words, it authorises the creation of $0.7tn of government debt which will have to be paid back at some point.

Debt is the cause of the problem, not it's solution. You can't borrow your way out of debt.

Source:
http://banking.senate.gov/public/_files ... ctionF.pdf

[Keith_McClary]

So Hank will be out Monday morning trying to borrow $850,000,000,000.00.

Who has a spare $850,000,000,000.00 to lend?

Of course he could borrow a tiny bit at a time (say, a mere $10,000,000,000.00 per month), but surely the whole point is to goose the economy in time for the US elections.

[smallpoxgirl]

Who has a spare $850,000,000,000.00 to lend?

Easy. Freaked out corporate and municipal bond holders who would rather be in T-Bills.

[Cid_Yama]

Unfortunately, the markets reaction shows this is seen as a final act of desperation that nobody believes will work.

This is like throwing everything you had left at it and praying for a miracle.

Now that it's happened, there is nothing more that can be done.

We are now at the mercy of fate.

[smallpoxgirl]

Now that it's happened, there is nothing more that can be done.

Ahh if only that were true. Desperation is the mother of stupidity. I think we have dozens more increasingly moronic and draconian "bailouts" to endure.

[IndigoMoon]

Has anyone actually read this 451 page monster?

H.R. 1424

Pages 113-260 are all about energy. Biofuels- carbon dioxide-etc. I'm fairly certain I saw the word refrigerator in there too.
11 DIVISION B—ENERGY IMPROVE12
MENT AND EXTENSION ACT
13 OF 2008
14 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE, ETC.
15 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This division may be cited as the
16 ‘‘Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008’’.
17 (b) REFERENCE.—Except as otherwise expressly pro18
vided, whenever in this division an amendment or repeal
19 is expressed in terms of an amendment to, or repeal of,
20 a section or other provision, the reference shall be consid21
ered to be made to a section or other provision of the In22
ternal Revenue Code of 1986.

Pages 261-295 are Alternative Minimum Tax
DIVISION C—TAX EXTENDERS
5 AND ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM
6 TAX RELIEF
7 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; AMENDMENT OF 1986 CODE;
8 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
9 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This division may be cited as the
10 ‘‘Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act
11 of 2008’’.

Starting on page 310 is mental health and addiction provisions.
8 Subtitle B—Paul Wellstone and
9 Pete Domenici Mental Health
10 Parity and Addiction Equity Act
11 of 2008
12 SEC. 511. SHORT TITLE.
13 This subtitle may be cited as the ‘‘Paul Wellstone and
14 Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Eq
15uity Act of 2008’’.

What does ANY of this have to do with an ECONOMIC BAILOUT? Am I really that blind or did they honestly cram all of this up our collective rears without us realizing it? And all under the guise of our economy crashing? Someone please explain just what I am missing here.

[mos6507]

Someone please explain just what I am missing here.

It's my guess that some members used this measure as a means to piggyback legislation that they felt would not normally be able to make it through in exchange for their support.

[wisconsin_cur]

Who has a spare $850,000,000,000.00 to lend?

Easy. Freaked out corporate and municipal bond holders who would rather be in T-Bills.

I would love it if someone could game this out 2-3 moves into the future. I have tried to think through it but my education in this area is thin enough that I trust the guy with the sandwich board as much as I do my own analysis.

Thinking through it the best that I can:

Corporations, states and individuals cannot get loans as banks hoard cash in an attempt to stay solvent.

People loose jobs as new projects are canceled or businesses/sectors dependent upon credit cease doing what it is that they normally do.

Demand for everything goes down in a type of downward, self feeding spiral as those with work or without work cease spending.

Until when? What then? Any ideas? Did I miss something?

[Tyler_JC]

The only silver lining is that we managed to kill section 8. Also known as the Emperor Paulson amendment.

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.

Congress managed to stop that nonsense from becoming law.

It might have cost of $100 billion in pork, but democracy was saved (kind of...).

[Cid_Yama]

Two weeks after 85 billion went to AIG, AIG has been downgraded by Moody's and it was all a total waste. It bought them 2 weeks.

The markets fell the same day this went through and people are talking about Monday being the end of the financial world. So 700 billion didn't even purchase a weekend?

I guess the US just goes into default and it's all over, eh?

Or is there something even worse I am missing?

[ReverseEngineer]

Or is there something even worse I am missing?

I think you are missing the part about the Fallen Angels returning to Earth to wreak havoc and destruction on all. LOL.

Sad thing of course is that 99.99% of the population has ZERO cue as to what is going on here. When the ATMs stop working, THEN they wake up!

I'm of the opinion today (changes daily) that the PTB will keep the computers running until every last product is bought off the shelves everywhere, be it gasoline or Kraft TV Dinners. What there is in the banks is completely irrelevant at this point.

It will be interesting to see how once the global monetary system crashes entirely, just HOW an attempt is made to Reboot?

Anybody with some ideas on this one? I'm working on a theory, but its currently just garbage. LOL.

Reverse Engineer

[virgincrude]

Tyler J_C:

It might have cost of $100 billion in pork, but democracy was saved (kind of...).

If you think democracy had anything to do with how your country got to the financial crisis it is in, you are bound to find silver linings where there are none.

Mortgage Market Musings

This writer knows what she's talking about: Catherine Austine Fitts is the former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner during the first Bush Administration, a former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read & Co. Inc. and President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc. You can read her analysis of the Act here:

Mapping The Real Deal
Her conclusion:

In short, our problem is not that our national debt is out of control. Our problem is a financial coup d’ etat. The reason we have debt is that the federal accounts have a private back door that is feeding an insatiable parasite. The money we need to address our financial, social, and retirement obligations has disappeared, and we need to get it back. The housing bill does not do this. Quite the contrary: It represents a step in the opposite direction. Instead of getting the money back, the housing bill ensures that our contingent liabilities increase astronomically and puts in place additional mechanisms for engineering more missing money and draining small business and communities as a result of further centralization of mortgage credit into Washington and Wall Street.

Argentians are urging Americans to get their dollars out of bank accounts now, they know what they're talking about. Here DailyPaul you'll find an explanation as to how banks are now no longer required to actually keep a reserve so that you can draw out your money when you want to. It winds up being the nationalisation of everybody's earnings and savings.

When "abnormal" times come - and boy have they come today!! - then people panic and run to their banks all at the same time, demanding to withdraw their money, not as electronic blips on the ATM machine, but as hard cash.

That was when we all discovered that the amount of Real Money in each bank's vaults was not suffient to pay all depositors, except for a handful (normally privileged insiders who "saw it all coming"). For the rest: of us, there was nothing left and the banking system collapsed. That's when in the US for example, and barring any taxpayer funded bail-outs, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) indemnifies up to 100.000 dollars in the US or, in Argentina, that's when we all realized that we had all been totally robbed, and took to the streets to uselessly bang our pots and pans on the banks' monumental iron-clad gates, conveniently shuttered the night before... All thanks to the inherently fraudulent Fractional Reserve Banking System. This is what happened in Argentina in 2001 and this is what is unfolding right now in the US.

Adrian Salbuchi