[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

For all who said Paulson's plan to buy the toxic paper wouldn't work -- the one reportedly as THE PLAN that Bernanke had set his little heart on from the very beginning -- you were RIGHT.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

You are being pinged. Too much pinging going on here! But then, these are historic economic times.

[vigilence]

McCain needs to demand a Special Prosecutor be appointed to investigate who profited from this bailout and how it all began. By doing so he gains the support of a large portion of the electorate, Republican and Democrat, and BO is bound to be against it for fear of the outcome and that he may have to enforce it if elected. Downside is it would expose Republican acquiesence over the years.

[AndyJackson]

Last chance to avoid financial system failure

The financial system has failed. That is not a debatable point. The question is how to clean up the mess to ensure that the broad economy will start to function in the manner resembling a productive first world economy and not a debtor nation sucking on the world's credit and prodcution excesses. The other question is how to allocate costs and how to restore some sort of moral justice to the world by exacting penalties on those who executed the old system in a manner mostly to their own benefit.

[Travis McGee]

"The logic of the conspiracy theorists in this regard is, of course, impeccable: Goldman alumnus Josh Bolten runs the White House, while his former boss, Hank Paulson, runs the Treasury. They both speak regularly to former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, now over at Citigroup, who ran Goldman before Paulson and who keeps Paulson and Bolton dangling like puppets on a string. They all supposedly touch base with the heads of the Italian and Canadian central banks—both Goldman alumni—and with Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, ex Goldman. What's more Paulson is now getting his advice on how to handle the crisis from Ken Wilson, the recently retired Goldman partner and financial-institutions M&A banker, who Paulson just recruited to Washington to help him out. Already at Treasury were Goldman alumni Dan Jester, Anthony Ryan, David Nason and Bob Hoyt, the department's general counsel. And—the conspiracy crowd can't help but point out—Neel Kashkari, 35, a former vice-president at Goldman who Paulson recruited as assistant secretary of international affairs in 2006, has just been appointed—by Paulson—to run, on an interim basis, the new $700 billion bailout fund."

~~William Cohan, "Does Goldman Sachs Really Rule the World?" October 2008

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”

~~President Andrew Jackson, on the 2nd National Bank

[palmer]

Plan B won’t work either, but it does have the advantage of the bumping up the stock market directly. Unfortunately it also creates a fatal connection between the govt-created credit bubble and the beneficiaries of the credit bubble (and it’s not us). Another reason that plan B is stupid is that China would invest directly in our banks if they thought it was a good idea. Instead our govt is borrowing the money from China to invest in our banks with the collateral being the sweat of future American taxpayers (if there are any left in the future).

[arthurus]

only a massive infusion of equity capital can reassure the market

...reassure the market by initiating explosive inflation????

[mysterio]

We’ve done enough. Now the banks are just sitting on the money. If they won’t lend, screw them.