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Dear __________,
I am deeply disturbed at hearing Rep. Frank on Countdown describing the "oversight" Congress is proposing for the bailout plan as a board, funded by Congress rather than the Treasury, Fed, or financial institutions, that would be able to "ask" Treasury after the fact what was paid for each asset purchase, and for an explanation of why that was the right price. Neither this board, nor Congress, would have any ability to halt a purchase even if the price is drastically off, or change the individuals making the pricing decisions. We've had eight years of government officials being publicly exposed for wrongdoing and continuing the same actions anyway, in effect saying, "So you (Congress) don't like it and the public doesn't like it, but you can't do anything about it, so we don't care." In light of this history, and Paulson's recently exposed corruption, this is beyond inadequate and into the realm of stage dressing. Pres. Hoover tried throwing money at the banks to deal with defaults arising from a troubled economy and it failed utterly. More recently Japan tried to cope with a serious recession by doing the same and found it useless. The financial institutions and their employees are as wrong on this as a solution as they were on mortgage-backed securities and derivatives. I also hear that requiring equity rather than asset purchases is no longer being considered; the taxpayers deserve having this reopened, especially in light of the debt too huge to rescue in the form of "credit default swaps".
The only obligation you have is to leave the next President enough money and borrowing power to rescue the economy by other, "New Deal"-style means after this fails. If excess borrowing to finance this moneypit is extreme enough to tank the dollar, the gov't will be broke just when the economy desperately needs help. Sincerely,
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