Plan? What Plan?
Not exactly a huge revelation:
The head of a new Congressional panel set up to monitor the gigantic federal bailout says the government still does not seem to have a coherent strategy for easing the financial crisis, despite the billions it has already spent in that effort.
Elizabeth Warren, the chairwoman of the oversight panel, said in an interview Monday that the government instead seemed to be lurching from one tactic to the next without clarifying how each step fits into an overall plan.
“You can’t just say, ‘Credit isn’t moving through the system,’ ” she said in her first public comments since being named to the panel. “You have to ask why.”
If the answer is that banks do not have money to lend, it would make sense to push capital into their hands, as the Treasury has been doing over the last two months, she continued. But if the answer is that their potential borrowers are getting less creditworthy with each passing day, “pouring money into banks isn’t going to fix that problem,” she said.
The new panel has held only a few briefings with Treasury officials so far, and Ms. Warren acknowledged that she and the other panel members were still in the early stages of their research.
Treasury Department officials have never described their actions as the sole remedy. A spokesman noted that Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. recently testified that stabilizing the financial system was a necessary first step in any plan to address the financial and economic crisis.
I guess it must be my irrational W hatred as to why I think that when spending trillions of dollars, there should be some sort of actual strategy involved, and not an ad hoc, spasmodic random money toss.
But that’s just me . . .
>
Source:
Bailout Monitor Sees Lack of a Coherent Plan
DIANA B. HENRIQUES
NYT, December 1, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/business/02tarp.html
December 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Come on Barry, Obama voted for the plan with all of the democrats…the hard core republicans..Bunning and Paul were the only ones who spoke out against this nonsense.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:22 pm
It’s not your W hatred, BR. It’s just plain f*cking common sense.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 am
Don’t sweat it BR…NOTHING THEY DO CAN REVERSE THE DEBT CRASH. Maybe they can open a bit of a parachute, but the ending will be similar regardless at this point. But they HAVE to do something…imagine the fallout if they did nothing (which actually might be better policy, LOL). Most every penny they spend will get sucked into the vortex, but they have to do it or there would be a revolt. Just hope that the right people are there to get us re-building quickly and equitably.
Remember my catch phrase a few months ago was “smoldering crater”…
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 am
Kudlow has the answers and a plan:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/28002786
If you guessed the plan is cutting taxes, you are right.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 am
Kudlow is the guy who said higher oil prices were a bullish sign of strong demand…now says lower oil prices are bullish.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:49 am
Plan? We don’t need no stinking plan!
Elizabeth Warren’s observations are more proof that the federal government has no idea what it is doing and is just making it up as it goes along.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:05 am
No one wants an “ad hoc, spasmodic random money toss”. But coming up with a plan that passes both economic and political muster is surely a herculean task. One of the problems with a detailed plan that is disclosed to the public is that it creates an “entitlement”; companies that meet certain criteria will become entitled to government money. Hank Greenberg, for example, was just on CNBC today whining and complaining that the terms for AIG were not as good as those for Citigroup.
So whatever the plan is, it not only has to be politically acceptable, and economically effective (to at least some extent), but must also result in cash disbursements to as few companies as possible, and done in such a way as to minimize moral hazard.
From my point of view, less is more. But that wouldn’t be politically acceptable.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 am
Obama is going to cut taxes, per Obama.
Monetary growth through the roof now.
I don’t believe it’s financial armageddon.
Everywhere I go in Sacramento is crowded with shoppers and diners. Long waits at restaurants. I think because gasoline has dropped $3 a gallon and folks now have smaller rent payments compared to the mortgages they had prior to the bank foreclosing their homes.
The news headlines are bad to sell news. That’s what news folks do.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 am
Deflation? I bought two dress shirts at Macy’s, originally $45, for $16 each with discounts and coupon I got in the mail. Similar shirt at Nordstrom is about $130.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:58 am
Kudlow’s plan for cutting corporate taxes to zero is… uh… just like the REITs that have no corporate level tax, right? How are they doing?
And aren’t the Bush tax cuts what got is to where we are? Didn’t Kudlow proclaim that the Bush tax cuts are what was behind the post 2001 economy?
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:25 am
W hatred? We all have to face our own demons.
As to “the plan” failures etc the real culprit is the general cluelessness by anyone who thought that there could be a plan, any plan in the first place. To even think, as so many did and continue to think, that a group of people, many of whom showed extreme bad judgment in the years past, could design and implement a “plan” is beyond believing in the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.
What we have instead are barnyard cocks thinking they make the sun rise everyday. History will show, as it has in the past, the best plan was/is no plan.
Oh, that’s right I forgot, if we don’t do something the sky would definitely fall, Armageddon would follow and the world would end and while you are thinking about that there is a huge fire in the theatre! Run for your lives.
Today’s excuse, GM!
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:00 am
“The Plan”, being enacted, has nothing to do with ‘jumpstarting the Economy’(whatever that ever meant), and Everything to do with the further consolidation of the USGov’t/FedRes Control of the Economy..
to that end, they have not ‘Failed’. as a matter of Fact, from that POV, they’ve been remarkably successful..
this: “and not an ad hoc, spasmodic random money toss.”–though, BR, is hardly an accurate portrayal.
It isn’t like Mrs. Beverly Johnson, from Peoria, can’t figure out why there’s an additional U$D 1,546, 223 in her Checking Account. Sadly, we’re lucky to know the Names of the putative recipients, let alone the Terms, and further details, of the Dealz being struck in our name, on our Accounts..
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:10 am
The ad hoc, spasmodic actions of the Treasury Dept. mirror the Iraq war aftermath, Katrina, Ike, etc. The same people that deplore a GM bailout defend an administration that could not organize a two car funeral cortege.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 am
“It’s not your W hatred, BR.”
” It’s just plain f*cking common sense.”
Same thing.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 am
This admin has been ad hoc for 8 years
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 am
And what’s Ms. Warren’s plan?
“In her view, the government should be trying to create more reliable customers for those banks by shoring up the fragile finances of the millions of American families that could not save, borrow or spend even if their banks were flush with capital.”
Hmmmm. “Shoring up the fragile finances of millions of American families.” Trickle up economics? How exactly would she accomplish this “shoring up”? And aren’t these the same “American families” who spent far beyond their means? Who took mortgages out on homes they couldn’t afford? Who abused their credit to fill their homes with big screen TVs, iPods, and brand new cars?
Could these be the same folks who haven’t spent any time upgrading their job skills? Spent time reading to their childern. Or saved for a rainy day?
Those of you think “W” is/was a conservative…and this financial crisis is the result of fiscal conservatism couldn’t be further from the truth. Bankers, automakers…”American families”…I have zero tolerance for BOTH the lazy and the greedy. And I have less tolerance for the politicians and media who coddle them.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
depends what the money is for doesn’t it. If the purpose of the money is to create friends, it doesn’t much matter to you what they do with it.
Remember this is the guy who said “I don’t know why black people don’t like me, haven’t we given them a couple of Cabinet positions?”
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
“I have zero tolerance for BOTH the lazy and the greedy. ”
Myself, I have zero tolerance for the intolerant.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:22 am
larster,
again, kindly, wake up. with this: “..defend an administration that could not organize a two car funeral cortege.”
you should remember, at the minimum, that ‘Every Coin has Two Sides’.
past that, feel Free to study some Bastiat: “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen,” Bastiat wrote:
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html#Chapter 1
http://fredericbastiat.com/
http://mises.org/about/3227
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
What a breeze of fresh air. Someone finally figured out that in order to solve a problem you have to understand what is driving it. I guess it does make a difference whether the neocons or democrats are running the show. Lets get back to reality. To paraphrase an old saying: “IT’S THE CONSUMER STUPID”. Our problem is that the consumer is no longer spending (more than they are earning). The reason is that they don’t have the money or the credit to overspend anymore. Give them money (stimulus checks) and give them reckless credit (via nationalized/FDIC banks), and they will get everybody out of this hole. Admittedly, the short-term solution to our problems would also be a disaster in the long term. So AFTER we get out of this depression we need to have a very serious talk with the consumer class and the investor class about hard work, fairness and adult supervision. I still don’t quite understand why the worker making cars in Detroit is overpaid at 60K/year if the MBA in New York who is making financial products that destroy our factories and economy is making over 500K/year. F**k the investor class, and more power to those who actually do some productive work for a living.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
“Kudlow…higher oil prices… bullish…lower oil prices…bullish.”
How can you fail to admire someone so full of bull?
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:01 am
“The Plan”, being enacted, has nothing to do with ‘jumpstarting the Economy’(whatever that ever meant), and Everything to do with the further consolidation of the USGov’t/FedRes Control of the Economy…-Hoffer
I don’t quite buy the USGov control part. Our “leaders” seem way too feckless and uninformed to attempt such a consolidation. The Fed, the nation’s “financiers” and their .gov plants however…..
Hey Neid, put me down for some of that W hatred…
add a touch more for the “we don’t want to LOOK BACKWARD and point fingers/We need to concentrate on FIXING THINGS NOW” crowd…..the same folks who voted for that OBVIOUSLY incompetent fucktard.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Yes Barry, if you think that verifiable facts and insights into a problem should be used to design a solution to it, then you are a f**cking east-coast, intellectual, “troop-hating,” Godless, traitor and luberal. Real men don’t need facts to back their opinions and solutions, they have their neocon ideology (and Rush and O’Realy and Hanity and Kudlow and…).
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
@Winston Munn
I think you can find work as a politician. Demanding responsibility or accountability isn’t a prerequisite.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
vaughn,
I hear your point, though w/o “The Federal Reserve Act of 1913″, and, associated, “Legal Tender Laws”, the FedRes would have never been, or, at the minimum, would never have maintained..
They, the USGov’t and the FedRes, are a Duopoly. It’s why I mentioned them together.
~~
Tom K,
methinks, Winnie was being facetious..