While we’re waiting for the text of the bailout legislation to become available, I’ve been checking around the House Rules... View Article
Continue readingFinancial Bailout: Deal hammered out?
That's what a series of members are saying on a press conference I happened to tune into a few moments ago -- there's an agreement, but details have to be worked out (including getting it all down on paper).
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cited Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., as being critical to the negotiations, along with Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
The House Republican negotiator, Rep. Roy Blunt, on now, cited Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.
Dodd ...
Continue readingFinancial Bailout: 102 pages and counting
This Associated Press report is a little like the early going of an Eric Ambler thriller: a tantalizing hint of the complexity to come, but very little detail about what the twists and turns will be. The market meltdown measure, which began its life as a 3-page bill, has grown:
...after almost a week of marathon talks between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and key lawmakers in both parties, the working version was up to 102 pages.
We're going to need to add a lot of text to Public Markup.
Continue readingFinancial Bailout: Who are the big investors?
The data is somewhat out of date -- from the end of 2006 -- but here were the top owners of some of the firms that stand to gain the most from a bailout of the financial system, courtesy of the personal financial disclosure database at the Center for Responsive Politics. Here were the top holders at that time:
Top Holders of Goldman Sachs
| John Kerry (D-Mass) | $2,000,002 |
| Christopher S. 'Kit' Bond (R-Mo) | $115,002 to $300,000 |
| Shelley Berkley (D-Nev) | $69,772 |
| John McCain (R-Ariz) | $65,002 to $150,000 |
| Denny Rehberg (R-Mont) | $50,001 to $100,000 |
| Kenny ... | Continue reading
