Barefootsies

Congressional leaders and the Bush administration this morning said they had struck an accord to insert the government deeply into the nation's financial markets, agreeing to spend up to $700 billion to relieve Wall Street of troubled assets backed by faltering home mortgages.

House and Senate negotiators from both parties emerged with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. at 12:30 a.m. from a marathon session in the Capitol to announce that they had reached a tentative agreement on a proposal to give Paulson broad authority to organize one of the biggest government interventions in the private sector since the Great Depression.

Full details of the plan were not immediately available. Lawmakers said their staffs would be working through the night to assemble the package and post it on the Internet.

"We've made great progress, but we have to commit it to paper before we can formally agree," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has pledged to make the plan available to the public for at least 24 hours before the House votes on it. A vote could come as early as tomorrow in the House, with the Senate expected to follow soon after.

"We've been working on this a long time. We've still got more to do to finalize it, but I think we're there," Paulson said. "So far, so good."

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Ohio), who represented House Republicans, the group that had raised the most serious objections to the plan, said he was pleased with the progress made but that he had to take the proposal back to his caucus before committing his support for it. "I look forward to what we're going to see on paper and presenting these ideas to my colleagues and getting their reaction," Blunt said.

A senior administration official, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the plan, said both sides had made significant concessions to achieve compromise. The Bush administration has agreed to accept a number of Democratic demands, including:

· The money would be dispersed in segments, with Paulson receiving $250 billion immediately, $100 billion upon White House certification of its necessity and the final $350 billion only after Congress has been given 15 days to object.

· Firms participating in the bailout would be required to grant the government warrants to obtain nonvoting shares of stock, so taxpayers can benefit if the companies return to profitability.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

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"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

HighEnergy

All 110 pages of it are here (PDF)

tony286

let me guess it does shit for the regular joe.

WiredGuy

From my understanding, it takes money from the ordinary joe (tax payers) and gives that money to the rich (institutional investors). Seems to reward the rich for bad decisions made.
WG

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tony286

its so fucked up.

Doctor Dre

Actually the rich made many mistakes getting there. Sadly, it will benefit some of them, but if nothing is done, the US economy collapses.

The paper market is dead right now, wich means that if an employer needs a loan to pay the employes/bills, he can't. Lots of people without jobs within a couple weeks, a huge wall street crisis, this could be a depression.

The 700B will not fixnothing longterm thought. It will simply help restore the credit market.

The housing crisis is still there, and there will be tons of people waking up with a house worth less then they bought it for.

The trade deficit is still there too, and not about to change overnight.

The energy crisis is still there, the peak oil has been reached and the people will have to change their lifestyles and develop alternatives.

The wars the US is fighting are not over yet, and it's costing the country a whole lot.

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FreeHugeMovies

It had to be done. For those who are bitching about it, go figure out what was going on and why we had to do it.

Jensen

Here are the basic problems:

- usa spends more money than it makes

- households spend more money than they makes

- the government spends more money than it makes

Might be a relief-rally today but I see the hole getting bigger...

Barefootsies

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Enough Said.

"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"