Day: February 7, 2009

New Plan For Banks

After weeks of internal debate, the Obama administration has settled on a plan to inject billions of dollars in fresh capital into banks and entice investors to purchase their most troubled assets.

The new financial industry rescue plan, to be outlined in broad terms on Monday in a speech by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, will not require banks to increase their lending. That is despite criticism that institutions that already received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, either hoarded it or used the funds to acquire other banks.

The incentives to investors could be in the form of commitments to absorb some of the losses from any assets they purchase, should their values continue to decline. The goal is to relieve the banks of their worst assets so that private investors might then provide more capital.

No matter what it is called, the government would assume some of the risk of declining assets at the heart of the economic crisis. But by relying on a combination of private investors and government guarantees, the administration hopes to reduce its exposure to losses and avoid the problem of having to place a value on assets that the institutions have been unable to sell.

A central element of the plan would be a major expansion of a lending facility begun in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when it was headed by Mr. Geithner. The program, which was initially financed by $200 billion in Fed money and $20 billion in seed capital from the $700 billion bailout fund, lent money to investors to buy securities backed by student, auto and credit card loans, as well as loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.

I posted recently that the banks would get more bailout and so it begins….more to come….we have been right so far…..we will continue to predict and analyze…..

Do We Have An Agreement?

Senior Democrats say they will back a plan worth $780bn, instead of the $900bn sought by the president, in order to gain vital Republican support.

President Barack Obama has become angry with delays to the bill, which mixes big spending plans and tax cuts.

The Senate is now due to hold a vote in the coming days.

The new $780bn plan is composed of 42% tax cuts and 58% new government spending, Democratic Senator John Kerry said, according to Reuters news agency.

Other details of the slimmed-down package are sketchy, but one Democrat told Reuters that the homebuyer tax credit and car tax credit were still in the bill.

The Democrats need to persuade two Republicans to vote in favour of the bill for it to gain the necessary 60 Senate votes.

However, the Senate minority leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, said that “most of us are deeply sceptical that this will work”.

And his Republican colleague, John McCain, defeated by Mr Obama in last year’s presidential election said: “You can call it a lot of things but bipartisan isn’t one of them.”

Now the fun begins….watch the new talking points on all the media circus….The partisan word fest is far from over…..the game is a foot!  Just sit back and watch the fun.

Romney For HHS?

This is filed under absurd news.

Mr. Obama laments the events that caused him to withdraw the nomination of his anointed healthcare-reform czar, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, as Health and Human Services Secretary. Reaching back to the lofty rhetoric of his campaign, he implores his audience to look past his own lapse in judgment and seize the opportunity to implement sweeping national reform that puts health insurance within reach for the millions already uninsured – and the millions more whose coverage is jeopardized by the nation’s economic crisis.

“I’ve seen such an approach work,” Kennedy declares, “in my own home state, where in just two years we’ve seen 500,000 people who were uninsured gain access to quality healthcare as a result of an agreement among Republicans, Democrats, hospitals, insurers, and the voters. They came together because they understood this issue was too important to remain bogged down in politics any longer. Now I am here to introduce my partner in that process; a man whose life experience spans the heights of the public, private and nonprofit sectors; a man whose commitment to the goal of seeing every American receive quality, affordable healthcare is every bit as strong as my own; the man who I believe can work with the president, the Congress and the entire healthcare system to reach this goal; my friend, my former governor, Mitt Romney.”

Putting Romney forward as the face of reform would be extraordinary, controversial, and risky. But, then again, so would anything resembling meaningful healthcare reform. It would require sacrifice on both sides of the political aisle – far beyond any of the halting, symbolic bows at bipartisanship exchanged thus far in the Obama era. And it may be the last, best opportunity to salvage the effort in the wake of Daschle’s fall.

Are these guys really considering this?  May I see a show of hands of those who think that Romney would play ball with the Obama Admin?  If he does then there goes his run for president in 2012……if he does then he will crap all over his conservative credentials……Would he take the position if offered So many questions…so little to work with…..?

8 Is Enough–But Why?

We have all heard the story of the woman who has 6 young children at home while deliverying 8 more.

“Anyone who transfers eight embryos should be arrested for malpractice,” University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan told ABC News.

“[Experts] would be astounded if a fertility specialist actually implanted eight eggs,” ABC News medical contributor Dr. Tim Johnson said. “Current guidelines, which are guidelines, not law, would suggest between one and four. … A vast majority of experts would say that [implanting eight] is bad practice.”

Studies have shown that the tendency toward prematurity and low birth weight in multiple-birth babies puts them at greater risk for a variety of complications, including respiratory problems at birth, cerebral palsy, birth defects, sensory disorders and even death. These risks increase as the number of babies in the multiple birth increases.

Fertility experts have been extremely critical of such high-risk births, which can threaten the life of the mother and lead to myriad health problems for the infants.

All that aside, what was this woman thinking?  Why do I ask that question?  This is the part that concerns me.  When the babies come home, they are expected to join their six other brothers and sisters as well as their grandparents in the family’s three-bedroom home. According to neighbors, the mother is single and in her 30s.

She is a single mother?  In this economy when everything is so damn tight, why would any single woman want 14 kids to care for?  Is there not someone who should have stopped this?  Who paid for the expensive IVF technique?  Who is gonna pay for the high health care cost of the babies?  Someone grasp this and explain it to all of us.  Please.

A California agency says it paid the mother of newborn octuplets more than $165,000 in disability payments for an on-the-job back injury. The payments made over six years to Nadya Suleman were disclosed Thursday to The Associated Press following a public records request to the Department of Mental Health. The payments were made between 2002 and 2008, during which time the single mother gave birth to most of her six other children.

“That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family,” Suleman told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday in an interview scheduled to air next week. “I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that … I really lacked, I believe, growing up.”

Her loneliness at being an only child lead her to do this sort of thing.  There is always a justification for being c00 koo.

This is the part of the story that I really enjoyed.   Suleman’s publicist, Mike Furtney, said Thursday that Suleman was “feeling great” and looking forward to being reunited with her octuplets, who were born prematurely and are expected to remain in the hospital for several more weeks.  Does anyone see my humor here?  She has a publicist!  Sounds like the little lady was already palnning for any eventuality.  Who pays the publicist?