Cost Estimate for H.R. 1728
The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, scheduled for the House floor this week, would cost the average U.S. family about $4.00.
You are viewing all content tagged with "Financial Services"
Credit Default Swaps – Too Little Too Late
The horse is long out of the barn, but Congress may soon step in to correct this problem with credit default swaps.
S. 961, introduced just yesterday in the Senate, would authorize the regulation of credit default swaps and other swap agreements.
Really super – now that the market for credit default swaps has [...]
Sorting Out How They’re Trying to Sort Out the Economy
We’re overdue here to discuss the big announcement this past week about how the government plans to sort out the “toxic assets” that have been preventing new lending and slowing down the economy.
Now, first things first: “toxic assets,” which were first referred to as “troubled assets,” will now be called “legacy assets.”
See? Things [...]
Bailout Update – Your Family’s $3,000 Investment
The Government Accountability Office has a report out on the financial services bailout law and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or “TARP.”
As of January 23, the Treasury Department has disbursed about $293.7 billion, mostly to purchase preferred shares of 317 financial institutions. That’s a bit over $3,000 per U.S. family, just shy of $1,000 [...]
The Bailout Money is a Slush Fund
“[T]roubled assets from any financial institution.” That’s what the financial services bailout bill allowed the Treasury Department to buy: “troubled assets from any financial institution.” They were talking about bad mortgages.
But then the money got used to buy pieces of financial institutions themselves. Some Members of Congress raised a stink when word circulated that [...]
Dueling Bailout Law Violations
Make no mistake, if banks were to use bailout money to pay dividends, it would be an offense to the taxpayers who thought their money was going to be used for lending. And House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) is right to object to that possibility.
But the statement he released Friday is [...]
Presidential Candidates Who Didn’t Create the Financial Crisis
There were a lot of good reactions to yesterday’s post about candidates for federal office with responsibility for at least part of the financial crisis.
We listed House members and Senators who either voted for, or didn’t object to, a law freeing up financial services firms to offer these wagers known as “financial derivatives” [...]
Did Your Representative Cause the Financial Crisis?
In 2000, Congress passed a law barring states from regulating credit default swaps under their gambling and “bucket shop” laws. This set the stage for the market in “financial derivatives” that are a big part of what is causing the economic meltdown today.
One hundred fifty-five of the Members of Congress who voted for [...]
Your Family’s $1,000 Bailout Bet on the Stock Market
The plan to bailout the financial services industry has now become a plan to invest in it. The President, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a new plan yesterday, not to buy distressed assets, but to buy shares in distressed banks.
It’s a little bit of a stretch. The bailout bills said the [...]
Switch or Not: How Did Your Representative Vote?
(Last bailout post for a while, I swear! Maybe.)
Of course, people are looking to see how their representatives voted, whether or not they changed their votes last week.
So like we did with the House vote Monday, in which the bailout failed, here’s the list of all House members and their votes on [...]