Dodd: Financial crisis is not a ‘natural disaster like the Gustav hurricane.’
Dodd: Financial crisis is not a ‘natural disaster like the Gustav hurricane.’
Today in an interview with NPR, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) sharply criticized the Bush administration for demanding $700 billion with no accountability, noting that no accountability largely led to this financial crisis in the first place:
I spent quite a bit of time last night with my colleague from Alabama, Sen. Shelby, who is the ranking Republican on the banking committee. I ran into Mel Martinez of Florida, the Republican senator from that start. I’ve talked to others here. This isn’t just Democrats. This isn’t a natural disaster like the Gustav hurricane. This is a man-made, avoidable, preventable problem — and a lack of oversight and accountability was one of the problems.
Dodd’s comments were a swipe against President Bush, who last week cited the financial crisis in the same breath as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
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Sorr — I meant to type “good ones”. I thought I did.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 pmChris Dodd seems to be one of the god ones.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 pmralph – I see we’re still having that wackiness with our time-warp posting!
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pmI’m very worried about this bail-out. We’re talking about a lot of money here!
Even after the way the current crooks in the W/H have de-sensitized us to throwing BILLIONS around like it’s nothing!
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 pmAs angry as I am about this economic mess, I agree that sitting back, doing nothing, and allowing the inevitable death throes of Wall Street to occur is unacceptable.
It’s just as unacceptable to enable this behavior further by giving a huge handout to those responsible with no accountability and no demand for a change in behavior.
If you had a deadbeat nephew who had major responsibility issues, and he hit you up for a large sum of cash because he was broke, would you give him the money he wanted with no strings attached? Most people wouldn’t. And that’s basically what we’re looking at — just on a much larger scale.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pmOh great, now oil prices are skyrocketing on the news of this awful bailout. Gee, I wonder if the world is getting disgusted with us yet.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:33 pmDodd would be a good choice for Treasury in an Obama administration. Too bad his state has a Republican governor who would appoint the replacement. He just made more sense in one comment than Bush has in eight years.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pmThis isn’t a natural disaster like the Gustav hurricane. The Republican Party is a man-made, avoidable, preventable problem — and a lack of oversight and accountability was one of the problems.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pmNo Caving In, please.
No Blank Checks, please. At the initial request (and we know from experience, other requests are likely to follow), our family would be taxed an additional $18,000.
I’ve never written a check for $18,000 without understanding fully the details — not to mention, having something to show for that payment, too.
That’s a year’s worth of college tuition for one of my four sons.
I want consequences for those whose selfishness brought us to this dire crossroads.
No blank check.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pmI can already hear the Repugnicant spin. It’s similar to the poor people were too stupid to leave New Orleans. Some bimbo from Townhall cited the poor taking on high subprime mortgages as the problem. Fortunately, the CNN anchor challenged her, suggesting blame lay all around.
Last week, something blew up. It wasn’t some poor person driving their Cadillac into the offices of Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. The “peace of mind” backing mortgage backed securities went wild. Credit default swaps went through the roof for a number of firms. That stopped credit in its tracks.
Show me a poor person that invested in credit derivatives. This is an unregulated rich man’s game and it blew up in their faces. However, the taxpayer gets to bail them out.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:35 pmI heard that AIG holders are seeking an alternative to U.S. Plan. Some propose selling off assets and finding others to invest in it.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 pmWhy didn’t they think of this before?
Can you think of just one thing that GWB has done right since he came into office? He has been a disaster. The rich just keep getting richer.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:41 pmLook, it’s not as if Shrubbie didn’t have the means for oversight, he just chose NOT to enforce anything, to do nothing, until it’s too late (remember 9/11?)
“WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2007 — The Bush administration said Thursday that there was no need for greater government oversight of the rapidly growing hedge fund industry and other private investment groups to protect the nation’s financial system.
Instead, the administration, in an agreement it reached with the independent regulatory agencies, announced that investors, hedge fund companies and their lenders could adequately take care of themselves by adhering to a set of nonbinding principles.”
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:41 pmFor this man made economy incompetence, they spaek of accountability, but for the War Crimes of this imoral administration we get only silence or Pelosi taking impeachment off the table!
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:41 pmGosh, I wish I was incompetent, and immoral, then I could just have the USA pay off my mortgage for me.
Has anyone else heard of the Riot Gear being delivered to Police Stations around the country?
And some of our military here being trained for riot control?
Something is up.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 pmThe Republicans have systematically gutted the protections set up since the big Depression causing crash under Hoover and everyone is surprised it happened again?
None of them learn a damn thing from history.
Its time to start tar and feathering Republicans and bankers that have gotten rich off breaking the back of the middle class.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:47 pmI love how the right-wing loves to pummel the left with the term “socialism”. Look it up, and it is exactly what they are doing now.
Main Entry:
so·cial·ism
Listen to the pronunciation of socialism
Pronunciation:
\?s?-sh?-?li-z?m\
Function:
noun
Date:
1837
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (governmental ownership? Like 79% of AIG purchased with taxpayer money?)
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state (Like when the state subsidizes big oil? Or when the state controls energy production and distribution?)
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done (if Bush got paid according to work done, he would be eligible for all those welfare programs the right-wing likes to complain about.)
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pmDNFP, do you have a link to tat quote? It’s a great find.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 pmDow is now down 360 points today. Looks like Bush’s bailout plan is not setting well with stock owners. Oil shot up by $25 too.
The meltdown continues.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 pmFrank and Jesse (Cheney & Bush) want to rob the train for their last huge haul of crony capital–DON’T let them do it!
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 pmBuckie, the ArmyTimes reported a full brigade goes into domestic service starting Oct. 1
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pmWhen I helped a neighbor applyfor a home equity loan, the first thing the credit grantor wanted to do was pay off all of the existing debt. All credit cards and other balances needed to be zeroed out.
Perhaps this is simplistic, but I can see a level of “fiscal responsibility” in that approach. Pay off all old debt before embarking on new debt.
Add in daily oversight, review of compensation packages and operating expenses, and maybe, just maybe, the taxpayers will get some of this money back.
PEACE
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:03 pmLet’s hope that there’s a Major outbreak of both Sanity and Responsibility in Congress. I mean, its just the future of our Nation and our way of life. Here’s hoping that Congress sees that as well, And that for just one time, they do the Right Thing! Accountablility comes with the bailout, and the ultimate freedom, the Freedom to take the Consequences, for those responsible for this insanity.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pmImpeach Pelosi, Cheney and Bush and Save the Constitution!
Impeach Palin and Restore the Rule of Law!
And just how much of this money will end up in some off-shore, tax haven account? Why would investment banks want to work to straighten things out when all they have to do is keep the market down long enough to get a nice $700 billion gift handed to them to do as they please on a platinum platter? You have people in prison for stealing food and these mega-thieves get to have another party at our expense. But to them, we’re not supposed to be watching. We’re supposed to be worried about gay marriage and other non-issues like that is what is going to destroy America. How intentionally blind is the American public? Carly Fiorina gets over $40 million and 20,000 people lose their jobs. What’s wrong with this picture?
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pmLobbyists at work…
Big Financiers Start to Lobby for Wider Aid
September 22, 2008
Jenny Anderson, Vikas Bajaj and Leslie Wayne. The New York Times. September 22, 2008. Page A1.
“The financial industry is looking for opportunities to profit from the $700 billion rescue plan recently unveiled by federal authorities. The industry’s lobbyists are working to have a broad range of troubled investments covered by the plan in addition to those linked to mortgages. In a September 21 email to its members, the Financial Services Roundtable said that the definition of a financial institution should be as broad as possible so that a wide variety of institutions, including mortgage lenders and insurance companies, could be allowed to participate in the rescue effort and sell off any investments involving mortgages. A day earlier the Bush Administration broadened its proposal to allow the Treasury Department to make decisions about buying financial instruments other than the residential or commercial mortgages and related securities originally identified.”
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 pmFISA deja vu?
-No accountability
-No oversight
-No restrictions on exit compensations
-No Federal ‘teeth’ in the provisions
In other words, RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY
Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse…
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 pmNice how the announcement of this latest round of corporate welfare managed to kill off the dollar ralley and jack up oil prices again. These ba$tard$ are going to steal everything in this country that isn’t nailed down on their way out and cripple the economy so badly that fixing social security and medicare will be impossible without massive tax increases or massive rate cuts. Almost as if that was the plan from the start.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 pmAn excerpt from an excellent article about this bailout by William Greider:
‘Despite what the pols in Washington think, the RTC bailout was also a Wall Street scandal. Many of the financial firms that had financed the S&L industry’s reckless lending got to buy back the same properties for pennies from the RTC–profiting on the upside, then again on the downside. Guess who picked up the tab? I suspect Wall Street is envisioning a similar bonanza–the chance to harvest new profit from their own fraud and criminal irresponsibility.’
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:14 pmI remember when many were OUTRAGED at the prospect of bailing out the homeowners and NOW we are going to bail out those who made money off the backs of homeowners. I think it would have been a prudent move to help out the homeowners FIRST-keeping them in their homes and helping alleviate the housing crisis.
I hope the Chris Dodd and the Democrats do not pass anything witout companies having to pay back as much as possible.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:16 pmWho knew WWIII would be waged within, against American citizens?
An unelected official, Hank Paulson, is now the 2nd most powerful man in America, perhaps the Planet. (Yes, Cheney is #1)
How could the former CEO of Goldman Sachs even pretend to know what’s best for the American citizen?
Nancy, where’s that phucking table?
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 pmBuckie Boy, stateofthedivision, satiriv – from stateofthedivision’s link at #21
‘The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.’
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pmYou know, 4 years ago I started to see things going south with the economy. At the time, my husband and I had been thinking about buying a house but I advised against because we had other debt and I didn’t think we could get a loan (guess I was wrong about that). So, we took three years, paid off every debt we had and managed to put about 10K in savings and checking accounts. We bought our house last year and that is basically the only debt (besides auto notes) we have. We worked our asses off for three years to do this.
While I understand that this has to be done on some level, I have to be honest and say that it really pisses me off that we have to do this.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:34 pmWe have suffered with eight years of unnatural Bush crime family disasters: stolen elections, lies, tax cuts for the rich, wars of aggression, rigging of soybean, wheat, rice and oil futures markets, cronyism, fascism, tyranny and treason. The list is almost endless. Let’s all flush this Bush/GOP gangster regime down the toilet in November.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:55 pmWhy is this any type of emergency today, or this week for that matter. Bush, Dodd, Paulson…even Obama and McCain are acting like this must be settled this week or the entire American population will be on the street, all commerce stopped, the locusts will ascend on existing crops, and life on earth will cease to exist.
Bush is ranting, once again, that our congress must immediately give him (via Paulson, this time) absolute power over this country’s fate, lest we fall prey to the ‘evil doers’ of the week. I am sick and tired of the fricking bogie men this man congers up to strip us of our rights and resources. I am as equally disgusted with the mealy mouthed congress that rolls over for him, better yet clears a path for him.
Please someone help me understand how this is truly an emergency TODAY. Show me how forcing the losses on the companies that took the risks will make their directors and CEO’s give up their own lucrative careers in retribution. Are the banks going to stop making money (writing good, new loans) and be content instead to attempt liquidating their bad loans? Is the entire corporate infrastructure going to suddenly stop finding new ways to increase their own net worth? It’s NOT going to happen. Bush is trying to sell us on WMD’s again and I simply do not believe they exist.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:55 pmGreetings Comrades:
Do we have an update on our new company, Peoples’ International Group (PIG) formerly known as AIG?
How about Peoples’ BS? formerly Bear Sterns?
Just checking in on how our “ownership society” is doing this day.
PEACE
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:01 pmTracy, Tracy,
Those were also bailouts with no accountability. What’s your point?
And whatever happened to that rugged, self-reliant conservatism? The one that was supposed to say “thanks but no thanks” to government “handouts”?
It’s hard to tell if you are more comical than pathetic…
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 am.
Speaking of hurricanes…
… WHY NO AERIAL PHOTOS OF THE DESTRUCTION LEFT IN THE WAKE OF IKE?
.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:22 am.
BLACKOUT OF HURRICANE IKE…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0dxJfxsa8
.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:25 amTracy,
After years of supporting what is probably the worst administration in history, and all of their criminal, misguided policies -including an invasion that has killed countless men, women, and children- it is rich of you to call anyone “jerk”.
I just have to laugh at “conservatives” (read hypocrites) like you who go into hysteric outrage when the poor seeks help from the government, but cannot wait for a multi-billion dollar bail out to prop up the rich and their absolutely stupid, greedy ways.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 pmhttp://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303340
Stop the bailout, sign that petition. Good video too.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:37 pm