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  1. doc holiday

    Nice clip!!

    FYI:

    The 2008 U.S. House of Representatives elections will be held on November 4, 2008, to elect members to the United States House of Representatives to serve in the 111th United States Congress from January 3, 2009 until January 3, 2011. All 435 seats are up for election. Democrats, who regained a majority in the 2006 elections hope to retain or expand their control of Congress. Although it is very unlikely at this point, the Republicans hope to regain the majority it lost in the 2006 elections or at least add to their numbers. Turnout likely will be increased due to the 2008 presidential election. The presidential election, 2008 Senate elections, and 2008 state gubernatorial elections, as well as many other state and local elections, will occur on the same date.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2008

  3. Anonymous

    I’m starting these folks up there in Washington don’t understand markets too well.

    “Reuters.com reports a senior U.S. lawmaker urged the SEC to reinstate an index arbitrage rule to halt market volatility. “The SEC has the authority and responsibility to ensure that this volatility is not exacerbated dangerously by internal market mechanisms such as program trading which could push this situation into a free fall,” said Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, who was chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and finance during the market turmoil of the late 1980s. In a letter addressed to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, Markey urged the SEC to order the New York Stock Exchange to reinstate rule 80A, which was designed to help calm market volatility.”

  4. Stuart

    Dark Indeed! what’s this scuttlebutt going around that the Senate is going to have a vote on this bailout bill, thinking they have 65-70 votes to pass it. Doesn’t this bailout bill have to originate in Congress? If this is true, is this legal?

  6. doc holiday

    As part of my full disclosure proramme, I have to admit, I have never been on The Supreme Court, nonetheless:

    FYI: Revenue-raising bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which also has the sole power of impeachment, while the Senate has the sole power to try impeachment cases.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S…i/ U.S._Congress

    Bills may be introduced in either House of Congress. However, the Constitution provides that “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” As a result, the Senate does not have the power to initiate bills imposing taxes. Furthermore, the House of Representatives holds that the Senate does not have the power to originate appropriation bills, or bills authorizing the expenditure of federal funds. Historically, the Senate has disputed the interpretation advocated by the House. However, whenever the Senate originates an appropriations bill, the House simply refuses to consider it, thereby settling the dispute in practice. The constitutional provision barring the Senate from introducing revenue bills is based on the practice of the British Parliament, in which only the House of Commons may originate such measures.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Uni…d_States_Senate

    See Also: A coup d’état (pronounced /kuːdeɪˈtɑː/ AHD: [ko͞o”dā tä]), often simply called a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government by a part of the state establishment — usually the military — to replace the branch of the stricken government, either with another civil government or with a military government.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d'état

  7. Anonymous

    It’s a pretty standard legislative maneuver. They would take up some revenue bill that the Hous ehas passed, but that the Senate hasn’t acted on (there are lots of those floating around). Then they “amend” the House bill by stripping out all its language and putting theirs in. Taa-daa, a new-old revenue bill that fulfills constitutional requirements.

  9. Stuart

    The SOBs. They’re going to either argue it has nothing to do with taxes or they’re going to attach it to another bill.

  10. Anonymous

    “I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. Screw the market! …. OK, I’ll take that back, not screw the market but let me tell you something,” said conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh as part of his analysis of Monday’s events.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/

    “When the government fails to pass a socialism bill and the market goes south, let it go south. I don’t want to pass a socialism bill just to protect the stock market,” said Limbaugh, the most popular of the talk show hosts.

    “I don’t trust you (Bush) and when you start screaming now of dire consequences if we don’t get a bailout bill, I don’t trust you. I need convincing and apparently there are a lot of members of Congress who feel the same way,” said Boortz in a view echoed by several of his listeners.

    Callers also said they did not appreciate what they saw as scare tactics used by Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

    “It almost sounds like they are demagoguing and preaching that the sky is falling, which makes me skeptical,” said one caller.

    Tens of millions of conservatives tune in to AM talk radio and trust its nationally syndicated hosts over media outlets they say have a liberal bias.

  12. Anonymous

    Please contact your Congressional representatives and tell them to stop this bailout now before it’s too late.

    Email Congress: (Cut ‘n Paste the message below)

    http://www.house.gov

    http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=CA

    Dear Representative,

    Approving this bailout will be signing your name to the biggest “THEFT” of American taxpayer dollars in US history.

    Wall Street has been pushing for deregulation for years. Now they are the first ones in line asking for government intervention. “Free Market when things are good and Socialism when the going gets tough.” Wall Street has been getting rich off the backs of poor working-class Americans for too long.

    FULLY REINSTATE the GLASS – STEAGALL ACT of 1933.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act

    Reinstating this key piece of regulation is the only way to ensure this scandal does not occur again in our lifetimes. Wall Street has led a concerted effort to abolish regulation for the past 70 years since the Great Depression. Now they have put the American people on the precipice of a Greater Depression.

    I’m confident most American people aren’t even aware of this key piece of legislation or that its regulatory power would have prevented this current financial disaster from ever happening.

    The act was enacted during the Depression to control speculation by banks via mortgage-backed securities and other devices. The banking industry (namely Citicorp) bankrolled over $300 million lobbying to overthrow this legislation–now look what’s happened….

    Please reconsider your position and stop this bailout.

    Thank you.

  13. doc holiday

    So sorry to beat upon sick horse, but…

    This is being placed in the news:

    Another possible change to the bill would modify "mark to market" accounting rules. Such rules require banks and other financial institutions to adjust the value of their assets to reflect current market prices, even if they plan to hold the assets for years.

    >> Nonetheless, in the most recent unpopular Bailout Proposal (which failed to pass yesterday) IMHO, Paulson is essentially saying this (mark-to-market) is how he will value troubled assets; it looks to me, like Paulson will be able to use mark-to-market, but corporations not in his circle, will have to find other ways to value illiquid securities. Any input from out there in space?

    This is indirectly from the plan:

    
§ 502(5)(E)(E) In estimating net present values, the discount rate shall be the average interest rate on marketable Treasury securities of similar maturity to the cash flows of the direct loan or loan guarantee for which the estimate is being made.

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