Check out the ideas of Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) to help taxpayers avoid a monster payout. Here is, from CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, the video and transcript. We began discussing this in “Reps. Kaptur & DeFazio on “Let’s Play Bailout” [Update: Senate Letter].”
DOBBS: This breaking news … The Senate will vote on a massive $700 billion Wall Street bailout [tonight]. That vote … will come two days after the House of Representatives voted down that Wall Street bailout, sending a powerful message to the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress, which apparently the Senate leadership now wants to ignore.
DOBBS CONTINUED: The House is due to reconsider the bill again Thursday after the Jewish holiday. Again, the Senate will be voting on the Wall Street bailout tomorrow evening.
DOBBS: This breaking news … The Senate will vote on a massive $700 billion Wall Street bailout [tonight]. That vote … will come two days after the House of Representatives voted down that Wall Street bailout, sending a powerful message to the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress, which apparently the Senate leadership now wants to ignore.
DOBBS CONTINUED: The House is due to reconsider the bill again Thursday after the Jewish holiday. Again, the Senate will be voting on the Wall Street bailout tomorrow evening.
Meanwhile, a group of House Democrats today proposing an alternative plan to deal with this financial crisis. Announcing a five-point plan, they call this legislation the no-bailout act.
The plan calls for government regulators to step in and regulate the markets rather than a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street.
Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio leading the new effort, and they join us now. Good to have you both here. What will be the cost of the taxpayer of your new plan, congresswoman?
REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D), OHIO: Our plan doesn’t cost anything because we oriented toward the market, not the government. And we follow the plan that was used back in the ’80s and late ’70s for the Resolution Trust Corporation, with all of the troubles back then, 3,000 bank failures, hundreds of agriculture banks, continental Illinois bank failure, inflation at 21 percent. And over 3,000 banks were resolved. Frankly, all the banks in Texas were closed. But at that time, William Isaac, who was chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation developed a net worth certificate as well as procedures so that $100 billion worth of resolution was accomplished for $1.8 billion out of the insurance fund of the FDIC.
DOBBS: Congressman, let me ask you here, have you had any reaction from the House leadership at all, the speaker to this plan? Because as Congresswoman Kaptur said, it’s reminiscent of the Resolution Trust Corporation. It also sounds like it draws on some of the experience from the early ’90s in both Sweden and Finland as suggested by Bill Isaac, former head of the FDIC. Is there any truth to that? REP. PETER DEFAZIO (D), OREGON: Absolutely. And what we’re offering them is something that enjoys broad Republican support, should enjoy broad Democratic support. Let’s try the minimalist, regulatory approach. Now, the markets spoke before we voted down that plan yesterday. If you read “The New York Times” today, they say actually liquidity and lending froze up yesterday in anticipation that the Paulson bailout would pass. I think the Paulson bailout is based on a false premise, shoveling this money into bad debt on Wall Street is going to solve this problem.
DOBBS: Can I ask you both something? The head of the Congressional Budget Office said this idiotic bailout of Wall Street was likely, was likely to cause a deeper crisis than the one that we’re currently going through. Why isn’t anybody paying attention to this in either the White House, the Democratic leadership or the campaign trail? Both Obama and McCain act like they have no knowledge of what the heck is going on here.
KAPTUR: They haven’t really identified the basis of the problem. Our banking system is fundamentally sound. This is a credit crunch and a housing foreclosure challenge. They haven’t identified the root cause. We can deal with the credit crunch through changes in accounting standards. The Securities and Exchange Commission today, as a result of the work that we’ve been doing so much over the last week and a half, to try to get them to look at those accounting standards is the reason that our local banks are short on credit to re-evaluate those standards and then to deal with the home foreclosure crisis in a way that it matters on Main Street, locks in on Main Street.
DEFAZIO: Lou, you know, credible economists say to us, look, if you adopt Paulson’s plan, you throw this money at the top on Wall Street under the premise it will free up credit among the banks, which many of them question, 400 at least, they say but it definitely doesn’t go to the root of the problem in housing. And what do you do when housing values go down and there’s another trench of maybe another trillion dollars of bad securities on Wall Street and Paulson comes back for more money or the next treasury secretary? We’ve got to try something else.
DOBBS: We should point out here, just so everybody keeps it straight, no one has any idea of the so-called toxic securities, no one has any idea how many of these there are in the system, period. We have no idea, nor can the Treasury Department suggest what the number is. Some people have estimates but we know we’re being low balled right now, right?
KAPTUR: Lou, we know 75 percent of the sub prime loans are good and performing — 25 percent that may have trouble, we’re not sure what the composition of those are, but we should put those into a special housing trust corporation where we can work them out with bank examiners in a way that we did back in the ’80s and be very disciplined and prudent about the way we do this.
DOBBS: Two questions and one is sort of a statement as my want from time to time. One is, there can’t be much excitement because you’re not calling for taxpayer money in the leadership or the White House. And that will upset Henry Paulson because he won’t be able to take care of his buddies on Wall Street. But the second part of this is, will we have public hearings? Will you actually invite the American public to have a voice here? Will you actually put together hearings in which we can hear competing viewpoints on this issue from the world’s best — the country’s best informed experts?
DEFAZIO: Look at it this way. We got a lot of experts who back this approach, doesn’t cost anything. Why not try this and if this works, great. If it doesn’t work, that would give us time to go through the regular process with hearings, hearing from the American public, looking at getting at the underpinnings of this crisis. And then if we’re going to put taxpayer money on the line, having a much better way of doing it. But maybe we can do it without putting the taxpayers on the line.
KAPTUR: And Lou, among those experts, 9 would like to invite Raymond Stall (ph) from my district in Vermillion, Ohio, who basically says “let all the Wall Street people hurt just like the rest of us normal people do. I don’t owe them a living. Corruption and poor management brought on all of this. If these people were to be fired and prosecuted and put into prison, then that might be one thing. But to allow the same people to be in charge makes no sense to me or anyone else.”
DOBBS: You know what? I think he sounds like an expert to testify anywhere. I like the sentiment. Is this bailout plan, I mean, the arrogance of the Senate, the arrogance of these two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, demanding that this legislation be passed, this Wall Street bailout, is this thing going to die tomorrow?
DEFAZIO: I hope so. I hope the Senate has the guts to stand up for the people they represent. I’ve already talked to a few senators called me today, Maria Cantwell from Washington is very interested in our approach and says she’s taking it to Judd Gray (ph).
DOBBS: Good.
KAPTUR: You know what I hope for, Lou? I hope for one courageous senator who will filibuster for the sake of the nation.
DOBBS: You know —
DEFAZIO: Maybe two.
KAPTUR: Maybe two.
DOBBS: So they can stay rested, because they’ve got a lot of fools to work against in that Senate. I would hope that there’s enough courage there. The House proved itself to be filled with men and women who are willing to stand up for what’s right and to turn down the special interest and the ignorant, arrogant leadership of your House, the Senate, and of course, the fellow over at 1600 Pennsylvania. Thank you both. It’s an exciting proposition. I wish you all the best.
KAPTUR: Oh by the way, have your listeners go to Kaptur, let’s play bailout on YouTube. They’ll be surprised.
DEFAZIO: Even better, have your listeners post the number for the Capitol switchboard, flood the Capitol switchboard tomorrow and call the Senate.
KAPTUR: That’s a good idea.
DOBBS: Now that’s a good idea. We’re going to help you. We’re going to have that and we’re going to have — we’ll have that on our Web site, LouDobbs.com. We’re going to put up that number. Now you want the number for the Capitol or you want the number for the House?
DEFAZIO: For the Capitol. It’s the side on the Senate. We got to go for the Senate. We’ve got to stop the Senate tomorrow just like the House stopped it yesterday.
DOBBS: OK, we’re going to have that number up. We’re going to put that number up at the end of this — on the other side of this break and ask everybody to do as Congressman DeFazio suggested. Call, e-mail and god speed. Thank you both very much. Congresswoman Kaptur, thank you Congressman DeFazio.
[I SNIPPED THIS SEGMENT ON COOL food product origin labeling, so if you’re interested, go to the transcript and read it. It’s an issue very important to me but we need to focus on the financial crisis story at the moment. - SusanUnPC]
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NOTE: I also included the transcript of Lou Dobbs’ interview last night with David Smick, author of “The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers To the Global Economy,” simply because I thought you might find it important reading.
DOBBS: The presidential candidates still pushing for that Wall Street bailout, believe it or not. … One of the country’s leading experts on the international economy, David Smick, joins me with his global solution to this financial crisis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Joining me now, one of the most respected economic thinkers in the country, journalist David Smick says there should be a global solution to this financial crisis, as it is a global problem.
David is the author of the brand new very important book, “The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers To the Global Economy.” I recommend his book to you highly. Great to have you here.
DAVID SMICK, AUTHOR: Great to be here.
DOBBS: This is — we’ve just seen, in my opinion, the United States Congress stand up and tell this — the Democratic leadership of Congress and this president and Henry Paulson to go stick it because they’re not going to be railroaded on it. What do you think?
SMICK: I think we — what bothers me right now is that we’ve had this magic pill mentality that if we only pass this pill or do this bailout, the magic pill will make this go away. I’m afraid to say this is going to be a credit crunch regardless of what Congress does. It’s going to go into next year and we ought to prepare for it. We ought to prepare the average small business and the average person to protect them, or at least soften the blow. The banks have lost a trillion and a half dollars of capital. These banks are leveraged, 10 to 12 to one.
DOBBS: Some of them, 20 to 30 to one.
SMICK: But even the conservative banks. That means $15 to $20 trillion that was in the credit system before is gone.
DOBBS: It’s gone and I’m not sure that this Congress or this president understands that whatever they did with this money, the $700 billion that they thought would be the panacea, the magic bullet, the magic pill, I can’t understand where that thinking came from because most of these folks have lived through the 1987 collapse of the stock market.
They’ve had lived through the 1995 monetary crisis and currency crisis. What is happening? Where are the wise men in our financial marketplaces in this country? Because it’s not Henry Paulson. It’s certainly not the people at — well, Merrill Lynch or Bear Stearns.
SMICK: Well, one of the problems I have is Washington is thinking domestically. And the solution is really going to be a global solution. There are $6 trillion in global money market funds sitting idle right now. There are trillions more in hedge funds, sovereign funds and all the rest. Now we may not like these capital flows but ultimately, they’re going to be the short-term solution to refinancing the American system.
When you listen to Hank Paulson, what he says is, bail out now, reforms later. I don’t understand why we’re not offering reforms of the — of our system right now. I mean, the reforms —
DOBBS: The reason — let me hazard a guess. One is, he’s taking care of his buddies on Wall Street. This is the free market, smile Mr. Market and all will be fine mentality of this administration for eight years. This is a legion of fools in that economic team and no reason to expect them to change simply because we have a major financial crisis in this country, is there?
SMICK: Well, you know, when you look at the events of the last two days or last week, the manipulation and really the foolish handling of market expectations. I mean, the American people ought to be angry for one additional reason. They’re told the world is coming to an end. DOBBS: Let me put it — these jackasses, whether they be Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, President Bush, Henry Paulson, are talking down this economy, these markets, and they owe the American people an apology. And I mean, without equivocation, an absolute apology.
SMICK: If you’re an elderly person last night and you say — you called your broker and you said, the world’s coming apart, so you sell everything, you sell every stock in your portfolio, in your small little retirement portfolio and you wake up this morning and the market rebounds by 485 and you say, what happened to my future? I mean, you know, it really is unconscionable.
DOBBS: And these leaders, if this market moves further it’s going to be as much a crisis of competence in these so-called leaders. These people owe the American people an apology. David Smick, your book is wonderful. We recommend it highly to everyone. It’s a great treatise on our globalized economy and the crisis, even the mortgage crisis only the beginning, as the sub, subtitle.
SMICK: Well, it’s a book that explains it for the average person.
DOBBS: It is. And this is heavy going stuff and you did a brilliant job. Thank you very much, David Smick.
Source :CNN
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