Obama Administration Seeking an Out on Bailout Rules for Firms

[steelmania75]

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package. (cont.)

Read more at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040303910.html?hpid=topnews

[imdjh]

1. Persuade?

"Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package. (cont.)"

That's odd, I thought we were saving these companies. I had no idea they had to be persuaded. If that's the case, then let them go on their merry way without the money, and prosecute the executives whose salaries taken from failing companies can only be considered embezzlement.

[FreakinDJ]

2. this was sorta "Debunked" already

look for the inside sourse

its less then an "inside memo"

[flyarm]

4. where was it debunked..MSNBC reported it 1 hour and 27 minutes ago!!

link for the debunking please..........


U.S. aims to help firms sidestep bailout rules
Obama administration seeks to avoid restrictions, including limits on pay

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30040075
By Amit R. Paley and David Cho

updated 1 hour, 27 minutes ago

[FreakinDJ]

5. The article was posted last night - not 1 hr 27 min ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3814965

The jest of the article was based on "sources familiar with the matter said." (9th paragraph) which of course could mean John McLame and his Band of GOP "I want Obama to Fail" Merry Men

[pleah]

3. Has Obama not been listening to the people about this issue?

Doesn't sound like it.:(

[OhioChick]

6. No....he's not listening. n/t

[jemma]

7. Here is Glenn Greenwald's response

Glenn Greenwald
Salon
Saturday April 4, 2009 08:35 EDT
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...04/04/summers/

Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street's ownership of government

White House officials yesterday released their personal financial disclosure forms, and included in the millions of dollars which top Obama economics adviser Larry Summers made from Wall Street in 2008 is this detail:

Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama's top economic advisers, collected roughly $5.2 million in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw over the past year and was paid more than $2.7 million in speaking fees by several troubled Wall Street firms and other organizations. . . .
Financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch paid Summers for speaking appearances in 2008. Fees ranged from $45,000 for a Nov. 12 Merrill Lynch appearance to $135,000 for an April 16 visit to Goldman Sachs, according to his disclosure form.

That's $135,000 paid by Goldman Sachs to Summers -- for a one-day visit. And the payment was made at a time -- in April, 2008 -- when everyone assumed that the next President would either be Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton and that Larry Summers would therefore become exactly what he now is: the most influential financial official in the U.S.

Government (and the $45,000 Merrill Lynch payment came 8 days after Obama's election).
. . .

As much as he campaigned against anything, Obama railed against precisely this sort of incestuous, profoundly corrupt control by narrow private interests of the Government, yet he has chosen to empower the very individuals who most embody that corruption. And the results are exactly what one would expect them to be.