Just another fake scam e-mail, right?

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury
Henry Paulson

Thanks to L.A. Land blog.

The Dems on Freddie and Fannie - 5 years ago

The Wall Street Journal has put together a collection of quotes from Democrats from 2003 when they were blocking all attempts to try increase regulation of Freddie and Fannie. McCain and Bush were both trying to get more oversight in place.

Here's a precious example.

Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Thanks to Betsy's Page for the pointer.

Bailout Fails, Mandatory Sunrise Bill Falters

Gotta love Scrappleface!

“The sun will come out tomorrow,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, “but only if Congress takes action now to eliminate uncertainty.”

Conservatives in Congress immediately expressed reluctance to support the Mandatory Sunrise Act, noting that government intervention is unlikely to have the intended effect, and could produce many unintended, and unpredictable consequences.

Why $700 Billion?

According for Forbes.com:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Read the entire article.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin, who linked to the LA Times Blog who dug this little nugget out.

Fox News analyzes:

But why $700 billion? Why not $500 billion? Or $1 trillion? And why hasn’t anyone explained that price tag?

No one seems to know.

The number is even more confusing given that one of the reasons the U.S. financial system needs bailing out is because no one knows the value of the securities that $700 billion is earmarked for purchasing.

One thing everyone (economists and market participants) agrees on, though: $1 trillion would have been too scary, frightening taxpayers and Congressman alike with the prospect of a bailout of that size. (It turns out $700 billion was too scary, as well. Congress rejected a first draft of the proposal on Monday, sending stock markets plunging.)

And $500 billion might not have been enough purchasing power at a given moment. (The language in the bill says $700 billion "outstanding at any one time.") Congress didn’t want to have to go back to the taxpayers and ask for more if $500 billion had turned out not to be enough.

So $700 billion was just right.