Wow! This is awesome and something that Mish has been harping on for a while. Check it out:
Officials said they want rules to eliminate conflicts of interest at credit rating agencies that gave top investment grades to the exotic and ultimately shaky financial instruments that have been a source of market turmoil. The core problem, they said, is that the agencies are paid by companies to help them structure financial instruments, which the agencies then grade.
"Until we deal with the compensation model, we're not going to deal with the conflict of interest, and people are not going to have confidence that the ratings are worth relying on, worth the paper they're printed on," Mary Schapiro said in testimony earlier this month before being confirmed by the Senate to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Timothy Geithner, the nominee for Treasury secretary, made similar comments in written and oral testimony before the Senate Finance Committee.
They are also taking on mortgage brokers...
Aides said they would propose new federal standards for mortgage brokers who issued many unsuitable loans and are largely regulated by state officials. They are considering proposals to have the SEC become more involved in supervising the underwriting standards of securities that are backed by mortgages.
...and derivatives...
The administration is also preparing to require that derivatives like credit default swaps, a type of insurance against loan defaults that were at the center of the financial meltdown last year, be traded through a central clearinghouse and possibly on one or more exchanges. That would make it significantly easier for regulators to supervise their use.
...and continuing to rebuke Bush policies...
Officials have been grappling for nearly a year to figure out how to better oversee the financial system, particularly as a number of large and inadequately supervised companies have encountered problems. In a sweeping regulatory blueprint unveiled last March, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. proposed a broad consolidation of banking and financial agencies, including merging the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That proposal is not included in the current plans.
...and hedge funds (with another rebuke of Bush)...
Other elements of the regulatory overhaul, such as the requirement that hedge funds register with and be more closely supervised by the SEC, would mark a sharp departure from the policies of the Bush administration.
...and executive pay...
For example, they are preparing proposals to limit executive pay at companies that receive money under the bank bailout program. In response to written questions by Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, Geithner said that in such circumstances the administration was planning to set a limit and that any compensation over that amount would "be paid in restricted stock or similar form that cannot be liquidated or sold until government assistance has been repaid."
"Excessive executive compensation that provides inappropriate incentives," Geithner said, "has played a role in exacerbating the financial crisis."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/25/a...
Damn, this is impressive! Obama is moving faster and even exceeding my own lofty expectations!
Fire away right-wing nutjobs. I look forward to your impotent attacks. Your ridiculous attacks will only raise Obama's 68% approval rating (nearly triple that of Chimpy's!):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/010...
Uh, Breezie, I hate to whiz in your Cheerios, but wasn't it a right-wing nutjob (Paulson) who authored the document that Obama is using as his template? Go check on that and get back to me. I've attached the link to the NYT story that references it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/us/pol...
Hey, I've also got to ask you: Didn't you get the sense during that overblown coronation, I mean inauguration, ceremony of a throwback to 1936 Nuremburg, what with all the huge flags and bunting? Hell, the only things missing were those massive drums and the cheering blond Hitler Youth in the front row. Weren't you channeling your inner Leni Riefenstahl? You'll want to look her up on Wikipedia.
That ceremony cost $160MM, by the way. Couldn't the Great Leader have better spent that money on feeding poor children?
Are you deaf? This was a quote in my original post:
It's right there in black-and-white. Paulson's proposal is not in Obama's plan.
My gawd. I realize you right-wing nut jobs are desperate, but I guarantee you that Obama's fellow citizens are going to see right through the righties attempts to take credit for Obama's great policy decisions.
I can't really blame the righties for trying though. Your choices are either (1) try and take credit for Obama's awesome policies or (2) get behind some nitwit from Alaska who believes the Earth is 5,000 years old. You righties have chosen the best of two bad options.
Breeze: Your highlight only covers ONE ASPECT of the Paulson plan, the majority of which Obama IS USING. Read the NYT article that I linked in, genius.
And, for the record, I am not an evangelical Christian and I don't believe the earth is 5,000 years old. I'll cheerfully put my Jesuit Catholic and collegiate education up against yours, so feel free to drop the right-wing nutjob moniker as well. You're far more indoctrinated than I'll ever be, especially given the fact that I haven't voted Republican since 1996!
You feel like having a bare knuckles ideological debate, I'm all for it.
Following is DIRECT QUOTE FROM NYT ARTICLE you buffoon: "But other proposals the Obama administration is preparing to make, like tighter federal regulation of mortgage brokers, had been recommended in Mr. Paulson’s blueprint."
Following is DIRECT QUOTE FROM NYT ARTICLE you buffoon: "But other proposals the Obama administration is preparing to make, like tighter federal regulation of mortgage brokers, had been recommended in Mr. Paulson’s blueprint."
I'm sure Paulson had some good ideas and I'm glad to see that Obama is picking out the good stuff and leaving the rest. It's very smart and pragmatic on his part and is a move away from Bush's "you're either with us or against us" policies.
If you're not a right-wing nutjob, then why do you care who gets credit for Obama's policies? And who do you recommend voting for? Ron Paul? He didn't even bother to put his name on the ballot in California.
So far, Obama is making smart and pragmatic moves. Why are you so intent on criticizing and belittling his every move?
Breeze: I'm not. A careful reading of my responses would indicate that I'm taking issue with your perfervid ranting on about Obama's greatness.
I'm also going to great lengths to point out, and in a non-partisan fashion, that he is not all that he is cracked up to be.
His relationships with Rezko, and Reverend Wright, and especially Bill Ayers, do matter. Ayers is not a "community activist", he's a homegrown terrorist. I don't use that term lightly, but he is. He's famously quoted as saying, following 9/11, that he wished he'd blown up more buildings.
Rezko is as dirty as they come, and if you spend any time researching the land deal that the Obama's did, you'll see that Michelle Obama and her law firm are just as involved with this mess.
I could care less about his political stripe, but it does MATTER TO YOU. You rant against "right-wing nutjobs", when many of us are anything but. I'm an arch-conservative, but it doesn't clearly connote slavish adherence to the Republican Party, as evidenced by the fact that I haven't voted for them since 1996. I found Dubya to be a well meaning frat boy, who got thrown into a much bigger job than he was prepared for and blew it (not unexpectedly).
His, however, is a cautionary tale for Obama as well. If you think for a second that the people and news media won't turn on him and savage him without surcease, well, look at how the people and media lionized Bush in 2000. See any similarities? They're painfully obvious.
His, however, is a cautionary tale for Obama as well. If you think for a second that the people and news media won't turn on him and savage him without surcease, well, look at how the people and media lionized Bush in 2000. See any similarities? They're painfully obvious.
Uhhh, no. It was obvious even back in 2000 that Bush was a bumbling idiot. I actually voted for him back then even though I knew he was a retard. I figured that the fact he was Republican (and presumably fiscally conservative) would trump his mental deficiencies. Boy was I wrong (on both counts).
By 2004, I knew Bush was a mistake and would have voted for Kerry if he had come out against the Iraq War. Kerry didn't, so I didn't vote in 2004.
Obama on the other hand is clearly 10x smarter than Bush and way more politically savvy. Bush was able to fool people for a while with his good ol' boy act. When that wore off, he was able to play 'divisive' politics with the Iraq War. But other than that he was politically and mentally inept.
Obama just amazes me. From his speeches to his actions to the way he plays politics. He is incredibly gifted. I never attributed any of these characteristics to Bush because it was obvious from the beginning that Bush had none of them.
Bush was just lucky enough to be the Republican presidential candidate at a time when Americans could afford to punish Democrats just because the Democratic president had gotten a blowjob in the White House. Today, Obama could star in a porn where he bangs the Virgin Mary herself and Americans wouldn't give a rat's so long as he turns the economy around and keeps us safe.
Anyway, if you can't see the stunning differences between Obama and Bush all I can figure is that you must be willfully blind.
Allan, Naked Capitalism has an excellent critique of Obama's proposed regulatory reforms. If you want to attack Obama's policies, this is the way to do it:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/01/o...
Breeze: You missed my point entirely. I was not drawing a parallel between Bush and Obama, I was drawing a parallel between the media lionizing Bush in 2000 and Obama in 2008.
I don't take anything away from Obama in terms of intelligence, nor do I grant anything to Bush in terms of intelligence. I saw the real Dubya during his time as governor of Texas and that was quite enough for me, thank you very much.
The point I was making was that the people and the media of this country will turn on you dirt quick and, Obama isn't showing significant progress real soon, things might get a mite ugly.
On a personal note, I referred to you as a buffoon earlier, and I apologize. I had my Irish up, but that's no excuse and I was out of line.
Can't we all get along?!
You right wing nut jobs and left-wing tree huggers, give each other a nice complement once in a while.
Now back to the regularly schedule program of ranting and raving......
this is well beyond whether or not youre a republocrat or a democratian. things are changing. i dont know if just "bad times" will be enough to have the poeople turn on obama. i think there's some recognition that our downfall is beyond bush or obama or clinton or whatever. i think people will not be so very quick to blame it on the leader. quick, sure, but not very quick. i think obama has twice as long as however long you think he has to get it going. and it's not going to work.