Some details on the $155 Billion House Stimulus Bill
The House of Representatives just passed another Stimulus bill of which $75 billion from TARP will be used to pay for it's $155 billion dollar price tag.Buy American made it into the bill with:The...
View ArticleThe Senate - Where Lobbyists can guarantee anything in the national interest...
We've just seen health care turn into the for profit health lobbyists'wet dream and now here comes the financial lobbyists (as if the House bill wasn't a bunch of swiss cheese already).The American...
View ArticleFed Chair Bernanke 2nd Term Nomination Passes Senate Banking Committee
No surprise here. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke gets Senate approval for a 2nd term. Now onto the Senate floor where there are 5 holds on his confirmation. The vote was 16 to 7, with 12 Democrats...
View ArticleBen is In
Bloomberg is tallying up the Senate votes and reporting Helicopter Ben Bernanke is in by a good 66%.Bloomberg yesterday interviewed 53 senators who aren’t on the Banking Committee, which voted 16-7 on...
View ArticleOh No! Senator Dorgan Please Don't Go!
This is just awful! Senator Byron Dorgan is announcing he will not run in 2010 for his Senate seat.Dorgan, a moderate who was first elected to the Senate in 1992 after serving a dozen years in the...
View ArticleWill Senator Byron Dorgan put a hold on the Bernanke confirmation?
Below is a 10 minute interview with Senator Byron Dorgan on his impending retirement, (h/t to Firedog Lake). Share
View ArticleWhat a surprise, Chris Dodd, Judd Gregg block "Audit the Fed" in the Senate
Can anyone else hardly wait until Chris Dodd is out of the Senate? Here we go again. The effort to Audit the Federal Reserve, which received a House Majority and survived the House Financial reform...
View ArticleBarney Frank - Let's Replace Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
Bloomberg is reporting House Financial Services Committee Chair, Barney Frank, is talking about replacing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with a different type of mortgage financing model. The committee...
View ArticleSenate Has One Standard for Wall Street and One Standard for Main Street
Ryan Grimm of Huffpost is reporting a double standard has formed in the Senate thanks to the Democratic leadership. Apparently when it comes to the confirmation of Wall Street favorite Ben Bernanke,...
View ArticleBernanke Cloture & Confirmation Senate Votes
Well, no surprise, the Senate just got in line and confirmed Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair, despite the fact we cannot find out who received $2 trillion dollars in loans, the complete miss of the housing...
View ArticleDr. Robert Reich on financial reform
Dr. Robert Reich at has an excellent piece today (Feb. 5) on the Congressional hypocrisy involved in its subservience to Wall Street. He calls it as it is, bought and paid fors.Call me old fashioned,...
View ArticleHouse lets anti-trust apply to health insurance companies
No doubt this will die in the Senate but the House overwhelming passed a bill to expose health insurance companies to anti-trust laws:The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to take a...
View ArticleSenators Demand Obama Administration Stop Sending U.S. taxpayer Stimulus...
In response to this report of $1.4 billion dollars of ARRA funding, that's Stimulus dollars, claiming to create U.S. jobs, instead being funneled offshore to foreign nations, Senators Schumer, Brown,...
View ArticleDodd to release Senate Financial Reform Bill Monday, a few details now
Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have been finding out details before the Senate Financial Reform bill is released.Some key points these reporters mention:CFPA - the much fought for...
View ArticleWhere are the AIG emails? - Rep. Alan Grayson
Congressional representative Alan Grayson is writing letters asking where are those AIG emails?I write to request that you turn over to this office, and the public, e-mails backed up on AIG’s servers,...
View ArticleSimon Johnson points to amendment to break up the "Too Big to Fail" Financial...
Simon Johnson is pointing to the Kanjorski amendment as a way to break up the 6 large banks who pose systemic risks, right now.This is to patch up the Dodd bill and gives an in to go ahead and break up...
View Article$50 Billion "Too Big to Fail" Bail Out fund may be History in Financial...
Looks like we might be seeing some movement to stop Too Big to Fail for real, or we might just see some politickin' instead. Bloomberg is reporting:Senate Democrats likely will scrap a proposal for a...
View ArticleReady to Rumble - The Goldman Sachs Congressional Hearing Preview Game
Ready to Rumble, Senator Carl Levin is on a roll. In preparation for the Goldman Sachs hearing on Tuesday, Levin released Goldman Sachs emails (pdf). From Senator Levin's press release:“Investment...
View ArticleWarren Buffett Denied by the Senate, GOP Stopped Current Bill
Update: The GOP managed to stop the current bill by a vote of 57. Back to "negotiations" it goes. "Democratic" Ben Nelson voted with the GOP. Did you know Warren Derivatives are Weapons of Mass...
View ArticleSenate to Debate Financial Reform Bill
The GOP has removed their block against moving forward with Financial Reform.The bill was reported to the floor Wednesday night and debate is set to begin on Thursday.The real question is what...
View ArticleDerivative Reform Under Attack by Lobbyists
What a surprise. A non-bank coalition is trying to gut derivatives reform. Hold onto your iPhone, that's right, Apple is among them. Seems they don't want to put up real money to cover their bets....
View ArticleBait -N- Switch on Audit the Fed?
A new amendment, which Senator Dodd has signed onto has been introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders. It appears we have a bait -n- switch or compromise, i.e. back room deal on auditing the Federal...
View ArticleDerivatives Reform is Under Siege!
This is astounding. We have former Federal Reserve chair, Paul Volcker, attacking the derivatives reform bill currently in the Senate.The provision of derivatives by commercial banks to their customers...
View ArticleConference Committee - Where Lobbyists Attack Bills after they have passed...
As noted many times, lobbyists are swarming capital hill trying to stop financial reform. Many of you probably don't know of a major kill legislation lobbyist trick in their arsenal tool basket. That...
View ArticleFinancial Reform Bill Senate Conferees
The Hills is reporting the Senate Conferees for the Financial reform bill committee conference have been chosen.They are:Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) will be joined by committee members Sens. Tim Johnson...
View ArticleMatt Talbbi Documents the Banksters Lobbyist Horror of Financial Reform
Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi has an inside account of war with Wall Street in the battle to get financial reforms through Congress.Picture the Restoring American Financial Stability Act as a vast...
View ArticleHouse Passed Bill Which Closes the "Offshore Outsourcing" International...
A little observed provision to remove the tax incentives to offshore outsource your job was passed last Friday by the House of Representatives in the American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act of...
View ArticleIs Korea is a long way away?
The proposed South Korea Free Trade Agreement has nothing to do with free or fair trade. It’s managed trade as defined in over a thousand pages filled with favors and exceptions for some special...
View ArticleBarney Frank Wants to Take Away Voting Rights of 12 Regional Federal Reserve...
The House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Barney Frank wants to take away Federal Reserve regional President's voting rights on the effective funds rate. Share
View ArticleS&P Has a Silver Lining - The Senate Banking Committee Reviews Their Methods
As Wall Street tanks, S&P's downgrade reverberations abound, our S&P labeled dysfunctional government, legislators are fighting back. Beyond the mealy mouthed put downs coming from the...
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