Paulson's bailout is a free-for-all for lobbyists

[Joanne98]

This guy can't say no to anyone. The bailout has become a catch all and everyone wants a piece of the action. It's easy though since they're his friends and it's not his money. All of this explains why the Paulson bailout plan has grown from $500 billion to $1.8 trillion and now includes posh foreign banks.
The group said a wide variety of institutions as varied as mortgage lenders and insurance companies should be able to take advantage of the bailout, and that these companies should be able to sell off any investments linked to mortgages.

The scope of the bailout grew over the weekend. As recently as Saturday morning, the Bush administration’s proposal called for Treasury to buy residential or commercial mortgages and related securities. By that evening, the proposal was broadened to give Treasury discretion to buy “any other financial instrument.”

The lobbying became particularly intense because Congress plans to approve a package within just two weeks, without the traditional hearings and committee process.

“Of course there will be fierce lobbying,” said Bert Ely, a financial services industry consultant in Alexandria, Va. “The real question is, Who wouldn’t want to be included in the package?”
Indeed. I'm thinking that the only people who wouldn't want to be included would be the US taxpayer, but hey, why does that matter?

http://www.americablog.com/

[barbtries]

1. we REALLY need to be

writing and calling our lawmakers. this is a travesty. fuck this robbing the poor to pay the rich! fuck it.

[ixion]

2. here's a petition

that's a good place to start.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x386410