If someone told you in January that the Bush Administration would push through another sweeping piece of legislation just before Congress adjourned, like it has for almost every Congress that one can remember during his two terms, would you have balked at the suggestion? If someone said it would put the taxpayers on the hook for several hundred billions and there would be no open hearings, other than a vague talky-talk about a 3-page proposal from the Administration?
MYSTERY FIGURES
So, $700 billion is the "bazooka" that will calm the markets? How did we get that number? Anyone do any analysis? We need a "big number" - how do we know that isn't too big? If so, who's making the choice of how much welfare to hand out and how?
AN END TO UNCERTAINTY AND LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
Now that the treasury has all that it needs, reportedly, with a $700 billion dollar slush fund, can we expect everyone to come clean about what is really going on, rather than having closed-door sessions, after which everyone is "afraid" to talk about it, lest it become a self-fulfilling round of fear / selling?
If not, then what did we really get for the Bush-Paulson plan?
Have we really purchased a restoration of safety and soundness of the system? If we cannot get above-board estimates of the true risk and full disclosure of what is out there, it looks like just another inning in the same game...
