Cheney will be put in charge of finding someone to fill the slot. Kinda like when Bush put him in charge of finding a qualified VP candidate.

Can you imagine if this much care and oversight was used to oversee Welfare? It does point out how breathtakingly incompetent the Bushit administration is in governing...

Why don't we just buy AIG? it is clearly just a money pit...

and a congressional oversight panel to be named by lawmakers themselves.

By any chance would this be a responsibility of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee? You know, the one run by Sen. Joe the Not Acceptable?

$10b given to Morgan Stanley, and $10b in bonuses paid to their top executives. This thing is a disaster.

Guess it'll do until the real mess gets here.

We should have known that the Department of the Treasury had no idea how it was going to use the $700 billion. The language of the legislation was vague and gave the Treasury too much latitude. The Congress and American public swallowed this poison pill because they were told that it was the only way to save the economy. The Department of the Treasury is handling this crisis just like FEMA handled Hurricane Katrina.

Thankfully, competence is less than 3 months away (let's hope).

The more I understand about the Federal Reserve and the international banking cartel, the more this looks like and orchestrated event...

relax. the same crack oversight crew is watching this as carefully as they did the massive amount of shrink-wrapped $100 bills we shipped to iraq right after "mission accomplished."

oh, wait.....

Would appointing Duke Cunningham to the post of Special Investigator, help him in his work release program?

Why did anyone think the bailout was anything more than an attempt to ratfuck the incoming Obama administration once it became clear this mess was going to blow up on Bush's watch? From the very outset it was also quite clear that this was shock and awe at it's worst and incompatence at best. Paulsen let's Lehman fail and within days he's begging for a trillion dollars? Give me a fucking break. And everyone is unaware that these toxic assests are poisoning the entire global system? Someone should have givenn Paulsen the link to the Agonist. Those guys have been all over this for years.

This is absurd as are the reports that Paulsen's kept boy in charge of the assests is behaving like an asshole not answering questions from the press as if he doesn't have to answer to anyone.

Mission Accomplished Bush/Cheney.

David Frum is now a contributing editorialist to NPR's Marketplace? What the fuck is that all about? Without any irony he was comparing bailing out the auto industry to bailing out the casino industry in an attempt to say that an auto bailout should be stopped at all cost because it's a handout to a favored group. Hey Frum you fucking asshole we just handed 700 billion over to the Bush gang if you didn't notice and it's for assests that don't exist. At least, at least the auto industry has some actual value and isn't just imaginary numbers.

I think I have an idea who Bu$h has in mind as a special investigator, a very like-minded individual:
Inspector Clouseau!

Yet Pelosi is so insistent that we expand the program!

Wanna know why the bailout took place? The stories are coming fast and furious but the story from Salon that Digby linked to seems to be a strong indicator;

"A common view among those involved with the talks is that any early effort to prosecute Bush administration officials would likely devolve quickly into ugly and fruitless partisan warfare. Second is that even if Obama decided he had the appetite for it, prosecutions in this arena are problematic at best: A series of memos from the Bush Justice Department approved the harsh tactics, and Congress changed the War Crimes Act in 2006, making prosecutions of individuals involved in interrogations more difficult.

Instead, a commission empowered by Congress would have the authority to compel witnesses to testify and even to grant immunity in exchange for information. Should a particularly ugly picture emerge, the option of prosecutions would still theoretically be on the table later, however unlikely.

In Obama's camp, there is a sense among some that such a commission would essentially mean letting Bush get away with crimes. "People have called for criminal investigations," one person familiar with the talks told me this summer as plans got under way. On Wednesday, a person participating in the talks confirmed that some people involved in the planning felt strongly that the commission would amount to "bullshit" and that Bush officials should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

But few think prosecutions are realistic, given the formidable legal hurdles and the huge policy problems competing for Obama's attention. Among them is the complicated task of closing down the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, which Obama advisors say is a priority. Some observers outside the Obama camp are also questioning how much Democrats really want exposed with regard to interrogation, since top Democrats in Congress were briefed in secret on some of the harshest tactics used by the CIA and appear to have done little, or perhaps nothing, to stop them."

My guess would be that their internals showed Obama winning in mid September even after they had tried to orchestrate an international crisis via Scheuneman and Rove with Shvakasvilli. It didnt' work so it was onto the next hail mary. That is the phony bailout or cash for cronies.

Typical Bush slight of hand but it's not exactly slight of hand more like getting knocked out by a cluster bomb while they run to their undisclosed locations with hordes of cash.

For all the hope and change Obama's back is to the wall before he even measures the drapes.

MattYoung;

Pelosi doesn't want to "expand the program" she's following the advice of those that aren't BushCo. appartchiks and the plan is to save the fucking world economy and now that Paulsen's cash for cronies plan has been shown not to work they want to implement a program that should have been the one they used from the get go. Capital infusion into banks, mortgage relief, huge stimulus for states, cities and towns, and something for American industry and infrastructure. Instead what did Bush do? Cash for his "base" of CEOs on Wall Street.

The Bush administration should be in jail and they all know their is a good chance that they could and will be without a massive diversion on the way out. The plan has probably been in place for a few years.

It didnt' work so it was onto the next hail mary. That is the phony bailout or cash for cronies. - grinning cat

So was the Merrill Lynch buyout and the Lehman collapse just part of the scheme? Or was the short selling orchestrated by Bush?

This looks very much like the pallets of cash airlifted to Iraq which disappeared in a flurry of corruption and mismanagement.

When are we going to face the truth. The bailout plan was a well thought out, well orchestrated raid on the US treasury by the banking community. Hank Paulson is just the front man.

Proof,billions upon billions have gone to give bonuses to the same failed executives who got us into this mess. Billions more have go to pumping up bank portfolios and, as near as I can tell, next to nothing has gone to actually easing credit.

OMG, just let it end. No wonder there was dancing in the streets when people learned that Obama had won.

But in a real sense it won't end. Democratic fingerprints are all over the deregulation that let it happen and today they don't have a clear idea about what the government should buy to own, what should be given a loan, and what should be allowed to fail.

Contrast this with the Chinese government's move to spend a half trillion on infrastructure and social welfare. In not unrelated news, Chinese financial scammers are attempting to flee the country, and Chinese executioners are sharpening their swords. When the Chinese talk about 'heads rolling', they're not kidding.

A lot of what Obama does will be like putting competent people at the floodgates of some sprawling misbegotten waterworks project the Corps of Engineers should never have been allowed to build in the first place.

The next four years might be better than dying, but probably not by much.

Folks, this TARP deal has smelled since it's inception.

I haven't been calling it Wealthcare for nothing.

I get the feeling that the same level of competence that transpired in Iraq AFTER the invasion is being applied to Wealthcare. As in, we'll act like we really didn't have a plan so we'll act on the fly.

The housing bubble overlapped with the oil price bubble. Now the bubbles have burst, poof, gone, along with, possibly, untold trillions (yes I said the T word) of taxpayers' monies.

Don't forget the monies so carefully wasted in Iraq as well.

I think that we can all agree the Obama Administration and Pelosi/Reid/Frank have done an abysmal job here. This reminds me of the Iraq fiasco, which BTW, Obama also hasn't fixed yet.

Oversight is the enemy of deregulation. So when Paulson says words like 'accountability' and 'transparency', he's actually referring to the standards that will be applied to Obama, starting around January 21, 2009. Until then, every corporate entity is 'too big to fail', so Paulson needs plenty of leeway.

The Bush administrations solution to the credit debacle caused by deregulation, is to run out the clock while funneling as much taxpayer cash as possible to Wall St.

My client UBS will get their share. Watch me.

Only way to make good with the American people is to grant a tax amnesty for 2008. Uncle Sam is officially cut off. leave him by the curb drunk in his own bubble-burst sub-prime stupor.

This is sickening. $700B for banksters who should be rotting in prison and another couple hundred billion for Iraq, but still no money for proper infrastructure or universal healthcare. This country deserves to rot.

"It's a good thing officials thought all of this through in advance, isn't it?"

And may I be the first to say, Heck of a job, Pauly.

Ron Byers nails it. It's a smash-and-grab. That's all they've been good at, and I think it's all they've ever been serious about -- the rest was smoke and mirrors.

Look over there! WE FOUND THE WMDS! ... and meanwhile they're tossing shrinkwrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills around like footballs ... throwing bales of them from the backs of pickup trucks in the streets of Baghdad as if they were dropping off hay for the "bovines" on the Prairie Wafer Ranch.

Loot and pillage. January can't come soon enough.

DanP.

I'm pissed and partly irrational but the whole think stinks to high heaven.

Paulsen chooses who gets cash for trash and who doesn't. "Nothing for you Lehman, we have to after all let th market dictate what happens..." Nothing stinks worse than that. I'm prone to conspiracies so I buy into the one that AIG is getting money hand over fist because there are billions tied up in AIG that are being used for covert activities by shadow intelligence agencies.

This is hardly a surprise after nearly eight years of Bush administration incompetence. These are the same people who have conclusively proved that they could fuck up an anvil in a sandbox. After ginning up one phony crisis after another they had no idea of how to deal with the real thing.

Not to belabor the point but.....

TARP ain't all that smells.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide

Wealthcare.....taking care of the wealth of a few at the expense of the many.

Pelosi should have taken this mess off the table and worked on that other thing instead. Maybe we could have avoided this.

Do you realize that the Bush administration has done more damage to this nation and the rest of the world through wars and economic shocks than the terrorists could ever dream of doing in a million years? So much so that we can't even assimilate it in our minds, or count off on our fingers the crimes they have committed. And Bush walks away from it all like Mr. Magoo, blissfully unaware of the wreckage he's left behind, only sorry for a few errant remarks like, "Mission accomplished."

Unbelievable. We can't even scream, we are so numbed by it all.

A few people critical of the 'bailout' brought oversight by a corrupt Republican regime up a few weeks ago, but they were shouted down by moderates and Wall St. bankers. The whole financial system and the American way of life was at stake.

Clearly the "bailout" is beginning to look like the Iraq reconstruction. So let's put Halliburtun in charge of it.

Neocons thought that Bush would Americanize Iraq. They were wrong. He has Iraqified the United States.

As the Republicans stated after the 2000 election, "Stop whining and get used to it."

I can't understand how Congress and the Senate haven't learned anything in the last eight years. When the Bush team says "this has to be done immediately for the good of the country", it isn't!

Iraq, Homeland Security and the Bailout. Every time they were given a blank check!

It will make it harder to trust Obama. I wish he had voted against the bailout...but it probably would have lost a lot of votes

Have you had your bailout today?!

One of the complaints of the DFHs during the brief time the bailout was being "debated" was that this was a similar situation to the frenzy before the Patriot Act was enacted or the AUF was passed. Not enough time was being put into drafting the bill, certainly not enough time was available to read and understand the implications of the bill. We were assured that it was okay, this time the adults really were in charge. Now we see that, once again, this just wasn't so. As a wise man once said, "fool me once, shame on me...fool me twice...you can't get fooled again."

Its only a matter of time before some totally deranged stessed out american taxpayer puts an ice pick in one of these fatcats brains....

though I am not endorsing or condoning such an act... these pigs at the trough better keep an eye on their backs...I know I would if I was swineing with them

This is a disgrace. People should be in the streets beating pots and pans, regardless of who is on top in Congress versus the WH, etc. We must scrutinize and demand of the Democrats too, to serve the people. I don't want to have wasted so much effort. And I want to know what Obama is going to say (he's still in the Senate and has special influence as PE.)

I'm with Keith Olberman; soon we will be calling the $700,000,000,000 bailout: How Daddy went to jail. Somebody should go to jail, starting with Paulson who clearly lied to all of us about the intent of the law and what the money would and should be used for. Not one American taxpaying family has had the simple help of a mortgage re-write, let alone a bailout. If you are a taxpayer, it is sink or swim, and it is hard to swim if you have lost your job. My own sister is facing one of those loans, and while there has been some "conversation" about a possible re-write, there is no help from the federal government. Maybe we should not close Gitmo yet, perhaps there is room for some banker/thieves and politicians in there. A special prison for a special class of criminals.

There are now reports that Chevy Chase Bank, based in Bethesda, Md. (one of its slogans on D.C. radio commercials is "the leading local bank") is seeking a suitor, and one of them is apparently CitiCorp. So is this where some of our bailout money is going? Sigh.

Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on around here.

"Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed."

What are we paying these THIEVES for?

We've got scam artists in Washington. http://www.chuckypita.com/the-worlds-greatest-scam-artists/

See here's what I don't understand about all these claims of oversight re: the bailout:

The "Emergency Economic Stabilization Acto of 2008" clearly reads:

TARP- The term TARP means the Troubled Asset Relief Program established under section 101.

TROUBLED ASSETS. The term troubled assets means

(A) residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before March 14, 2008, the purchase of which the Secretary determines promotes financial market stability; and

(B) any other financial instrument that the Secretary, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability, but only upon transmittal of such determination, in writing, to the appropriate committees of Congress.

TITLE I TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM

SEC. 101. PURCHASES OF TROUBLED ASSETS.

(a) OFFICES; AUTHORITY.

(1) AUTHORITY. The Secretary is authorized to establish the Troubled Asset Relief Program (or TARP) to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance with this Act and the policies and procedures developed and published by the Secretary.

End of excerpt

That being the case, what oversight. The only requirement is a reporting one. Once the public funds were transferred, with no Constitutional authority I might add, the only requirement on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury (former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson) is to submit a report to congress of what he did. He defines the troubled asset and in concert with Bernanke they decide which defined assets will promote their conception of market stability. Their only requirement to Congress is a reporting one.

This seems to me not to be about market stabilization (Anyone noticed any yet BTW?) but about transferring bad debt that they created through derivatives and high risk underwriting from the friends of the private Federal Reserve Cartel, i.e their Council on Foreign Relations Corporate buddies, to the public.

As far as I can determine the bail out is all a sham and always has been.

BTW, Obama seems to be choosing his cabinet from the same group, The Council on Foreign Relations, that Bush did. Nine of his 15 foreign policy campaign advisors were from there and the team assisting him in putting together cabinet choices consists of Summers and Lake both CFR members.

Like I figured through the whole campaign- Change? What change?

it is a crying shame. everyone complains about what is happening, but no one is willing to do anything about it. we keep electing the same nightmare clowns to ofice over and over again. it's time americns got off their lazy spoiled collectivest asses and start doing, and making the hard desissions that have to be made in order to keep our republic. everyone wants change but no one is willing to make the sacrafices to get it done, what a bunch of pussys.

Change? Change starts when the public first and foremost votes on people NOT because thier white/black. We cry about government but go a fucking elect another one of the same bought off parties once again and you can bet there will be nothing but lies tossed at the public for another four years. We the people are stupid pussies and thus deserve all we got coming. Brainwashed!

The more you know about that monster called the Federal Reserve and its history, the more you'll realize that this probably has been thought through quite carefully. They have created money crises many times to get what they want.

Our government is thick with bankers and lawyers, so is it any wonder all these billions (maybe trillions) of dollars are going to the banks and lawyers?

This is all orchestrated by the federal reserve with a collectivist government, and before very long, many of the freedoms that you suppose you have will be stripped away - in the name of national security of course. The pace of losing your liberty is increasing.

Visit the Freedom Force International website to learn more about the American version of collectivism, how we got here, where we're heading, and how to make it stop.

Does anyone know where I go to sign up for the 401K bailout program?

The name of the game is bailout. This is nothing new. This is the private banking cartel we call the "Federal Reserve" bailing out their member banks and continuing to pass the tax on to the american people through inflation.

First of all, the directors on the boards of these major banks and AIG should immediately forgo any bonuses, perks and 20% of their base salary if they are serious about fixing this situation. As far as Henry Paulson is concerned, the Bush Administration has put the fox in charge of the hen house.