Hank Paulson's Merry Banksters:
After defeat of the financial rescue bill in the House this week, Washington sought advice and ideas from lobbyists of the same industries blamed for creating the mess.
n White House meetings and phone calls Thursday, President George W. Bush and top advisers pleaded with industry groups to help save the $700 billion financial bailout plan, following its defeat Monday in the House of Representatives.
Members of Congress also opened their doors after largely shutting out industry lobbyists earlier.
In response, lobbying groups, particularly in financial services, buried their differences and joined forces. In the process, bankers and other business interests helped shape a bill that bristles with provisions favorable to the banking industry, for example, and includes spending and tax breaks for lawmakers to tout in their districts, from Northwest toy makers to Chicago suit-makers to states stricken by disasters in the past couple of years.
In the days leading to Monday's House vote, financial-services lobbyists were shut out of tightly guarded meetings on Capitol Hill.
After the vote, stunned Republican and Democratic leaders met with the American Bankers Association, according to a lobbyist who helped arrange the meeting.
Well, well.
- lambert's blog
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lobbyists/industries have written every single bill for years--
it seems--and it was an election talking point when the GOP was in charge of Congress--nothing has changed at all.
We'd be better off if it were Kesey's Merry Pranksters
This reference (as well as "drinking the kool-aid") makes me wonder if Wall Street and Washington are really taking LSD or if I'm experiencing a flashback. Sure seems more plausible than this being reality.
At least Kesey's band gave us some harmless fun and great music without robbing us all blind.
Oh, yeah...STILL waiting for Dems to write a GOOD bailout bill.
Yeah, that'll happen.....maybe I AM flashing back!
In my business, when one has a problem to solve, first one must determine the root cause, then devise a solution that actually addresses that root cause. Otherwise, you get laughed out of the room.
So far, it's been Hillary (and a few others) who've pinpointed the root cause as people not being able to pay for mortgages and proposed a solution that forces an unwilling mortgage industry to renegotiate all those bad loans in order to prevent foreclosures, let folks keep their homes and bankers from driving their companies into the ground.
Funny how the bankers would rather risk losing everything than give the middle class a break on bad loans, be it thru the joke of a voluntary Bush program to renegotiate those mortgages or revising the bankrupcy laws to let the judges do it unilaterally.
Guess the bankers were the smart ones....they got their money, anyway....