BUSH RE-EMERGES FROM HIS CACOON, PLEADS FOR BAIL-OUT OF BANKS & WALL STREET FIRMS

So now Bush is front and center in pushing his bailout of the Wall Street firms and banks. And, according to Barney Frank, a deal looks promising that includes caps on executive compensation for those firms that take advantage and sell their toxic debt to the government, protection for homeowners in bankruptcy proceedings in being forgiven the amount their mortgage loan exceeds their equity, and Congressional supervision. So much for Bush and Paulson arguments that caps on executive salary would force some banks to refuse to "participate." Oh yeah, right! The government stands ready to buy their toxic worthless debt at 100% of face value when it is worth zero on their companies' books. Yet Bush and Paulson led us to believe that then the executives would "refuse to participate." Not in your wildest dreams!

And how about that John McCain. What a statesman. He is foregoing campaigning to return to Washington where he will single-handedly solve this whole mess. What a patriot? As Barney Frank said, however, he hopes McCain does not gum up the agreement that has nearly been finalized between Democrats and Republicans.

And maybe, John McCain can avoid that foreign policy debate with Barack Obama on Friday night in Mississippi. This way, on his strongest suit, where McCain can describe how he was a patriotic prisoner of war in VietNam and ask Obama what he ever did, perhaps McCain can delay the debate to more closer to the election on November 4th.

CONGRESS SHOULD REQUIRE LIMITS ON EXECUTIVE PAY FOR THOSE BANKS THAT SELL JUNK TO TREASURY

Many bloggers have commented already on that specious argument of Bush and Paulson to the effect that, if Congress puts salary restrictions on top executives of banks and brokerage firms that sell their junk investments to the Treasury, it will prevent significant participation.

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post has an especially sarcastically funny article.

But consider this. You're a big executive of Citibank or Goldman Sachs with millions or billions of worthless bonds in your inventory. Would you decide not to participate in this billion dollar government giveaway and bailout when you could sell the toxic junk to the government for 100 cents on the dollar when the junk is worth maybe only at best 10 cents? Don't tell me that you would walk away from the chance to double or triple your company's bottom line in this way because you don't want to take a cut in pay, from say 10 million to only two million.

That's the Bush/Paulson argument why Congress should avoid hassling those guys making 10 million plus whose only reason for such pay was that they nearly bankrupted their companies and drove them to almost total financial ruin.

Oh yeah, right!

Congress needs to step back away from the brink of handing Paulson his 700 billion and think this one out more carefully. Executives should not be rewarded for the lousy job they have done. To the contrary. If they want their banks and brokerages to turn worthless junk into pure gold, they need to put some of their own money into the pot.

CONGRESS SHOULD REJECT BUSH/PAULSON PLAN TO BAIL OUT GOLDMAN SACHS & MORGAN STANLEY

Congress should refuse to go along on the 700 million + bailout of financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. These investment banking firms made bets that could have brought them billions in profit. Instead, the mortgage markets went against them and now they stand to lose billions.

Just as the government does not bail out individual investors who make the wrong call, so too the government should not rescue these Wall Street firms.

Furthermore, no one in the Bush government has been ready to lend a helping hand to the millions whose homes either have already been foreclosed or who now find themselves in foreclosure proceedings.

Congress, turn down the Bush proposal. Let Wall Street firms work it out themselves. Don't spend tax dollars rescuing financial firms at the same time that the government refuses to help the homeowner in foreclosure peril.