paulson

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that amid news that a bid to extend a lifeline to the Big Three automakers failed in the Senate last night, the White House is considering allowing some of the $700 billion allocated for the Wall Street bailout to save the industry. A spokesman for the White House called [...]

Ever wonder why Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson seems to be giving away the store to Wall Street these days, granting insurance giant AIG a second bailout and allowing American Express to pretend it’s a bank so it can get government money, too?

President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for top positions in his new administration, such as his chief of staff, are drawing all the attention lately. But in the financial world, there’s a growing call for him to do more than just pick new personnel. There’s also a belief that the credit crisis is at such a perilous [...]

As the Wall Street bailout program morphs from one helping banks to one benefiting insurers and (perhaps) automakers, the Bush administration is having a hard time explaining what rules are dictating the process — and where it’ll draw lines of eligibility.
It’s an unlikely spot for a conservative White House that once lived and died railing [...]

The $488-billion for defense was just tacked on to a larger spending bill at the last minute, with no separate vetting by appropriations committees. The lack of oversight leads to increased funding for programs repeatedly criticized by Defense Sec. Robert Gates.

When Wall Street is struggling, we are told that Wall Street and Main Street are attached at the hip. But what about when Main Street is struggling?

President George W. Bush, the Treasury Dept., the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are all out in force today, as they should be. You own a piece of some of our biggest banks today.
Bush went first, explaining to the American people that Washington will invest $250 billion in the nation’s banks. The [...]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spent his academic career studying the Great Depression. But this economic meltdown is uncharted territory. It turns out the Fed already guaranteed $650 billion even before Congress ok’d that $700-billion bailout.

In an interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson Thursday, Sen. John McCain said his “Homeownership Resurgence Plan” to allow the federal government to buy up bad debt from banks and allow people to refinance mortgages they can no longer pay, may require $300 billion in “new money.”
New money, as in, additional to the $700 billion [...]

MarketWatch takes a hard look at Republican nominee John McCain’s surprise proposal in last night’s debate to have the government buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them.
If that idea sounded a little familiar, MarketWatch pointed out, that’s because the $700-billion rescue package already includes authority for the Treasury Dept. to do just that, if it [...]