They don’t really know, do they?

Where are the wanker wonks of economic policy on this crisis? We haven’t really heard from BarackO on this and he has Paul Volcker, Bob Rubin and Larry Summers on his team. He even has William Donaldson and Paul O’Neil, two republicans working with him. We’ve heard quite enough from that genius Phil Gramm, McCain’s guru who told us to “quit whining” because it was a “mental recession.” Gramm’s wife helped the Enron people figure out their mess. That’s just what we need. Actually, it looks like what we’re going to get.

Hank Paulson, who is said to be a very smart guy and respected on all sides, has asked us for $700 billion of our tax dollars to buy up the devalued mortgage bundles now risibly called “securities,” a misnomer if ever there was one. The idea being that eventually, when the next real estate boom gets rolling, they will be worth more than they are now and can be sold in an up market that will pay back the money into the treasury.

But they are not telling the public the whole truth. Just like AIG went from needing $40 B to $75 B and then got $85 B, all in the space of three days, we are now looking at the 700 number with no explanation how it got to be that high. Part of it, I read this morning, is that other bad debts, like credit cards and car loans, will also get paid off. But they will likely be written off. We really don’t think the government is going to buy those bundles and then a few years from now try to collect on them, do we? Hell no. The money will go to the schmucks who made the bad deals. This is supposed to shore up our economy and the people with bad credit will only have to wait a few years before their mail box is stuffed with card company offers of 0%.

Paulson sounds almost believable but what is he saying? We cannot trust just one guy to be making these decisions, but wait TSJ reader! Since the likely scenario will be that this Secretary of the Treasury and the next will in fact be making these decisions with the concurrence of their boss, you now gotta ask yourself, who you really want to be the one person who will say yea or nay to the next Treas. Sec.

McSame has been anything but lately. He says the economy is “fundamentally sound” one day but something else the next. He’s now conveniently for regulation, and suggests that maybe a commission can straighten this whole thing. Let’s wait till the next administration to get to work on that, is his thinking. His pandering is just more playing to us dopes who, he thinks, don’t know noffink. He wants to believe that should he possibly get into the WH, others will do his thinking for him, sort of like the guy who is in there now.

This is an argument that needs to take place because I believe that people who are undecided, if asked, will pick the Harvard hotshot over the bottom feeding legacy guy who barely made it through the Naval Academy. He may be a great pilot, but…never mind. I believe that the Obama skeptics (and you know who you are, you blue collar catlicks clinging to your guns) are going to have to take a very close look at the quality of leadership that is required for this situation because only the President will be able to say “no” to the Treas. Sec. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen. It could get very ugly. Does anyone think that a guy who admits to being out of touch with how the national economy is run would be the best one making decisions on recommendations from just one man? If Phil Gramm is that man, the mackerel snappers amongst us can kiss it all off. He will invariably do what’s best…for the richest five % of the country. It would be like letting Paul Wolfowitz into the DoD with no rules.

Bush is now asking Congress to rush the $700 B through. So you know it MUST be wrong. Xiao Bushie, whose only true business experience is trading on his family name, and I must say he has done this brilliantly, is the last guy we want trying to figure out a fiasco of this proportion. This hurry up mode suggests to some skeptics that there can only be something in it for him down the line. “Congress wants strict oversight with an equity stake. The administration wants flexibility.” If I want to borrow a bunch of money from you but I insist on “flexibility” on how it will be repaid or what it will be spent on, you are more than likely going to say no. What does Bush want with this money? What has he not already bought that this now gives him the means?

I like what Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, said. “It would be foolish to waste massive sums of taxpayer funds testing an idea that has been hastily crafted.” O yes it would. This morning Paulson and Bernanke go in front of the banking committee to make their case. It should be veddy interesting. As Incurious George says, “The whole world is watching.”

And here it is, your moment of Zen. At the end of a longish article in today’s NYT, that never mentioned specific downsides to the bailout, came this: “Officials said that the administration was also prepared to adopt conflict-of-interest rules for any private firms that are hired to help the Treasury manage the bailout program. Some lawmakers were worried that such firms might also own assets that could grow in value depending on how the rescue plan was run.” The crooks will be in charge, gah fo’bid.