Three particularly interesting items this morning which we'll highlight for those readers who are closely following developments surrounding the U.S. financial market meltdown. We'll post links and short text excerpts below:
The Salt Lake Tribune provides more information on the $700 billion mortgage bailout scheme which Geedubya and Treasury Secretary Paulson will be ramming down the throats of our Congresscritters this week:
"Bailout without precedent":
WASHINGTON - Revealing its plan to rescue the nation's financial system from near-paralysis, the Bush administration is asking Congress for the authority to spend $700 billion and for powers to intervene in the economy so sweeping that they had virtually no precedent in U.S. history.Wasn't it George Bush who told us that his job would be a lot easier if America operated as a political dictatorship? Hmmmm... Looks as though we may be moving one step closer to that.
The proposal, set out in a spare 2 1/2 -page document sent to congressional leaders Saturday, would effectively allow the Treasury secretary to set up a government investment bank to buy up the billions of dollars of the mortgage-backed securities now clogging the arteries of the global financial system.
The dollar figure alone is remarkable, amounting to 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. But the most distinctive - and potentially most controversial - element of the plan is the extent to which it would allow Treasury to act unilaterally: Its decisions could not be reviewed by any court or administrative body and, once the emergency legislation was approved, the administration could raise the $700 billion through government borrowing and would not be subject to Congress' traditional power of the purse. [...]
''It essentially creates an economic czar with no administrative oversight, no legal review, no legislative review. And it gives one man $700 billion to disperse as he needs fit,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.
''He will have complete, unbridled authority subject to no law,'' she said. [Emphasis added].
And an enterprising Salt Lake Tribune journalist Pat Bagley has dug deeply into the Trib archives, and provides a morning story with elements which might arguably provide some of the less optimistic among us a strong sense of deja vu:
"1929's Tribune headlines were not so different from today's":
The Friday before the great stock market crash of 1929, Utahns could read in The Salt Lake Tribune that the previous day's market ride had been a thriller. Dizzying early losses were offset a bit by a late-in-the-day rally. [...]We suppose we can find solace in the fact that we haven't heard about any realtors gassing themselves in their kitchens, we guess... not YET, anyway.
The Saturday before the crash, a headline read: "Strong Market Support Sweeps Away Clouds," then curiously led with two items: One about a Mr. Germansky who was last seen near the New York Stock Exchange, muttering to himself and tearing a strip of ticker tape to bits (anyone having information about his whereabouts, please contact Mrs. Germansky); and the second one about how a real estate dealer from Illinois had gassed himself in his kitchen after stock market losses.
At the top of A2 was this: "President Declares Business Structure of Country Sound"
And speaking of deja vu, one Utah blog, Simple Utah Mormon Politics, provides a faith enhancing story angle which we believe will have appeal for our gentle readers of the LDS persuasion:
"The "D" Word: Gordon B. Hinckley is Looking Pretty Prophetic About Now...":
Ten years ago, President Gordon B Hinckley told members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to get their houses in order and begin to get out of debt, because we might be headed for a depression. Few have listened. It looks like, ten years later, that President Hinckley's warning was rather prophetic.There's an actual reason they're called "prophets," you know.
That's it for now, gentle readers. We'll skip the laborsome analysis and instead rely upon our readers to explain the meaning of all this. Be sure to lodge your ever-savvy observations and comments below.
