Senate's Dodd: Paulson plan "not even close"

[margotb822]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic chairman of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Monday called the Treasury Department's plan to overhaul financial regulation "a wild pitch" that fails to address the housing market crisis.

Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said he welcomed the plan offered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, but questioned its relevance in addressing falling home prices, rising foreclosures and the imminent threat of recession.

"To talk about overhauling the regulatory system is a wonderful idea. But frankly it doesn't relate to the issues we're grappling with," Dodd said on a conference call.

"I would call this a wild pitch. ... It's not even close to the strike zone," he said, drawing upon American baseball imagery to criticize Paulson's proposal


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080331/pl_nm/usa_economy_regulation_dodd_dc

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Quick rebuttal to an obviously partisan and doomed plan. Go Dems!

[Robbien]

1. Good for Dodd

With everything else that is wrong with this Paulson plan, the idea of States giving their authority over their States financial matters over to the private company known as the Federal Reserve is most disturbing.

Good to hear Dodd lead the opposition charge.

[DJ13]

2. Paulson (and the Bush admin) arent concerned about our economy

They are only concerned with preserving the wealth of their large constituents in the stock market.

The Fed as well, as evidenced by rate cuts that devalue the dollar and increase the already burdensome inflation the average american is suffering.

[Robbien]

3. Massachusetts securities regulator: Paulson’s plan absurd

“The subprime mortgage meltdown, the failure of the auction rate market and the virtually unchecked spread of risky derivative products into areas assumed to be safe and secure investments have been due, in part, to a failure of regulation and oversight by the federal government,” Mr. Galvin said. “It has been the states, especially progressive ones, that have signaled these looming financial failures.”

. . .

“This proposal is just another in a long line of attempts to remove or dilute the role of states as consumer protection in the financial area,” Mr. Galvin added. “There is room for efficiencies in federal regulation of financial markets, but it is of little use to the people if we wind up with a single watchdog—and the watchdog sleeps.”

http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/REG/943637972/1036

[u2spirit]

4. Dodd must be majority leader

next term. He speaks truth to power and takes crap from no one. Plus he's on the right side of the issues. His only blip was HAVA

[eridani]

5. Amen

With this and the FISA filibuster, I'm almost ready to forgive him for HAVA.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Ice shudders went through my spine the other day, when I realized that the

"chaos = opportunity" strategy of the Bush Junta was likely at work in the recent financial meltdown. They create chaos. They thus gain the opportunity to do yet more evil.

The Bush Junta being in charge of "reforming" the de-regulated speculators who have brought our economy to the brink of Great Depression II, is like the Bush Junta "rebuilding" Iraq after "shock and awe." An opportunity for grand theft--for theft on a scale that is unprecedented in the history of the human race, let alone U.S. history.

So, one wonders...was this "crisis" induced to, say, destroy a public agency (the SEC) in favor of a private agency (the Fed)? Is this (--plus, in my opinion, an oil war in South America, to be instigated this year) to be the final "gift" of the Bush Junta to the American people? The end of any public oversight of our financial system?

Senator Dodd talks a good line. But he also presided over the end of public oversight of our vote counting system. He was the key Democratic leader who colluded with the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney--to pass the so-called "Help America Vote Act" (in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, Oct '02), which provided a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle, to fast-track voting machines, all over the country, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. So, I don't trust Senator Dodd. We've had enough of Democratic leaders who claim to be progressives, and yet betray the American people in the most crippling, anti-democratic ways imaginable. Privatizing our voting system. Jeez.

What to expect? A radical fascist proposal by the Bush Junta (as reported). Some Democratic tinkering with the radical fascist proposal, to make it seem...oh, kind a 'liberal' (say, tack on a little help to homeless former homeowners). The latter may or may not have the "votes in Congress" to be tacked on. The Dems--bolstered by their "Blue Dogs" from '06--will likely claim that they don't have the "votes in Congress" to not vote for the Bush Junta's radical fascist proposal, nor to override the Little Emperor's veto of the tacked-on help for the poor, nor to punish him, if he, by "unitary executive" 'signing statement,' deletes that part-- and so, they have to vote for the Bush plan, as is, cuz the financial system will go down to perdition if they don't. They will all give great thundering speeches about how they tried to help the poor, in the teeth of the cold-hearted fascists, and how they will keep an eye on Bush for the remainder of his emperorship, in case he moves his own private fortune into euros. And if he does...well...maybe they will, too. But that won't be mentioned in their speeches.