A REAL STEW
Slowly going through the actual Emergency-Pork-to-Save-The-Economy-and-Insure-Wealthy-Depositors-Bill, one comes away with the impression that, despite the headlines, the Bill has a little of almost everything in it.
The FDIC under Bush, reportedly, will use "authority" to directly capitalize banks, without having to provide any proof or oversight reporting on how exactly it determines "systemic risk". No one put a price-tag on that, that I can tell.
HUD will expand the FHA even beyond its recently distorted state, under the assumptions that FHA know how to assess and charge for credit risk better than did the private markets (the FHA charges insurance, typically in the form of an upfront fee, that is supposed to protect the taxpayers from loss...gulp).
OVERSIGHT?
Congress missed the opportunity to set up a Financial Industry Board (the FIB), rather than delegate everything to the Treasury Secretary.
At least they could have used such a mechanism to have made sure that the people selected to run the thing had to pass the muster of a vote.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
An Everything Bagel
