White House Meeting Fails To Yield Bailout Bill
2008-09-26 02:25:59
A renegade bloc of Republicans moved to reshape a massive bailout of the U.S. financial system Thursday, surprising and angering Bush administration and congressional leaders who hours earlier announced agreement on the "fundamentals" of a deal.
At the White House meeting that included President Bush, top lawmakers and both presidential candidates, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) floated a new plan for addressing the crisis that has hobbled global markets.
Democrats accused Boehner of acting on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Arizona) in trying to disrupt a developing consensus. The new proposal also displeased White House officials, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., who chased after Democrats leaving the meeting and - half-jokingly - dropped to one knee and pleaded with them not to "blow up" the $700 billion deal, according to people present at the meeting.
Before the meeting broke up, President Bush had issued a stark warning about the impact on the nation's economy if the measure did not pass. "If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down," said Bush, according to one person in the room.
Under the alternative Republican plan, the government would set up an expanded insurance system, financed by the banks, that would rescue individual home mortgages. The government would not have to buy up the toxic mortgage-backed assets that are weighing down financial institutions.
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Carbon Building Up In Atmosphere Faster Than Dire Predictions
2008-09-26 02:25:34
The rise in global carbon dioxide emissions last year outpaced international researchers' most dire projections, according to figures being released today, as human-generated greenhouse gases continued to build up in the atmosphere despite international agreements and national policies aimed at curbing climate change.
In 2007, carbon released from burning fossil fuels and producing cement increased 2.9 percent over that released in 2006, to a total of 8.47 gigatons, or billions of metric tons, according to the Australia-based Global Carbon Project, an international consortium of scientists that tracks emissions. This output is at the very high end of scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and could translate into a global temperature rise of more than 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to the panel's estimates.
"In a sense, it's a reality check," said Corinne Le Quéré, a professor at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia and a researcher with the British Antarctic Survey. "This is an extremely large number. The emissions are increasing at a rate that's faster than what the IPCC has used."
The new statistics also underscore the growing contribution to the world's "carbon budget" from rapidly industrializing countries such as China, India and Brazil. Developing nations have roughly doubled their carbon output in less than two decades and now account for slightly more than half of total emissions, according to the new figures, up from about a third in 1990. By contrast, total carbon emissions from industrialized nations are only slightly higher than in 1990.
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Editorial: What About The Rest Of Us?
2008-09-26 02:25:10
Intellpuke: This editorial appeared in the New York Times edition for Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008.
Lawmakers were still wrangling Thursday night about the Bush administrationâs $700 billion bailout of the financial system. Political theater was mainly responsible for the delay, but it will be worth the wait if lawmakers take the time to make sure that the plan includes real relief for homeowners and not only for Wall Street.
The problems in the financial system have their roots in the housing bust, as do the problems of Americaâs homeowners. Millions face foreclosure, and millions more are watching their equity being wiped out as foreclosures provoke price declines.
The problems became even more evident Thursday night with the federal seizure and sale of Washington Mutual to JPMorgan Chase.
Itâs unacceptable that lawmakers have yet to come out squarely in favor of bold homeowner relief in the bailout bill. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the biggest advocate of bailing out Wall Street, is also a big roadblock to helping hard-pressed borrowers. He wants to keep relying on the mortgage industry to voluntarily rework troubled loans, even though that approach has failed to stem the foreclosure tide - and does a disservice to the taxpayers whose money he would put at risk in the bailout.
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Economists Question Basis Of Paulson's Plan
2008-09-26 02:24:21
The Bush administration's pitch for a sweeping bailout of the financial system has centered on two simple premises: that the economy could suffer a crippling downturn if action is not taken very quickly and that this action should consist of the government buying troubled mortgage securities from banks and other institutions.
Yet many of the nation's top economists disagree with one or both of those ideas, even as many top political leaders have swung behind them.
Wall Street economists have mostly endorsed Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr.'s plan, or a variation thereof.
Almost 200 academic economists - who aren't paid by the institutions that could directly benefit from the plan but who also may not have recent practical experience in the markets - have signed a petition organized by a University of Chicago professor objecting to the plan on the grounds that it could create perverse incentives, that it is too vague and that its long-run effects are unclear. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Alabama), ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, brandished that letter Thursday afternoon as he explained his opposition to the bailout outside a bipartisan summit at the White House. The petition did not advocate any specific plan, including that offered yesterday by House Republicans.
Economists tend to agree that the nation's economy is at serious risk as the flow of credit threatens to freeze. Just Thursday, the interest rate at which banks lend to each other rose steeply, as it has every day this week, suggesting that lenders are hoarding cash. History shows that when this happens, a broad economic crisis can follow, for instance, the Great Depression and Japan's decade-long recession in the 1990s.
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Palin To Return Donations From Tainted Politicians
2008-09-26 02:23:28
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said late Thursday she would donate to charity more than $1,000 in campaign contributions from two Alaska politicians who were implicated in a sprawling public corruption scandal. She's also handing back another $1,000 from the wife of one of the men. The announcement from a spokesman for the campaign of Republican nominee John McCain came hours after the Associated Press reported Palin had accepted the checks during her successful 2006 run for Alaska governor in the weeks after the FBI raided the offices of the lawmakers.
The ensuing scandal became a rallying point for candidate Palin, who was swept into office after promising voters she would rid Alaska's capital of dirty politics.
''Of course, Governor Palin has made a career of holding herself to the highest standards of ethics. As soon as the governor learned of the donations today, she immediately decided to donate them to charity,'' said the spokesman, Taylor Griffin.
Griffin said he did not know which charity would receive the money from Palin's old campaign fund, but expected the return to take place as early as Friday.
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Credit Tight, But Stocks Rise On Hopes For Bailout
2008-09-25 17:37:09
Stocks rose on Thursday as investors appeared more confident that lawmakers in Washington would move quickly to pass its bailout plan for the ailing financial system.
At the same time, the anxiety gripping the credit markets refused to abate. Banks continued to hoard cash, clogging crucial financial arteries that keep money flowing to businesses and consumers for car loans, credit cards and payroll payments.
Interest rates on short-term loans jumped back toward the record levels seen at the end of last week, meaning that banks were reluctant to lend cash. The yields on Treasury bills continued to fall, a sign that investors were willing to accept small returns in exchange for a safer bet than stocks or corporate bonds.
The Libor rate, a benchmark gauge that measures how much banks are charging one another for overnight loans, jumped the most in one day in nearly a decade.
The moves in the credit market, if sustained over time, could have ripple effects on a wide swath of the economy. Many businesses depend on short-term loans to finance their day-to-day operations, like utilities and payroll.
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Editorial: Absence Of Leadership
2008-09-25 17:36:46
Intellpuke: This editorial appeared in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008.
It took President Bush until Wednesday night to address the American people about the nationâs financial crisis, and pretty much all he had to offer was fear itself.
There was no acknowledgement of the shocking failure of government regulation, or that the country cannot afford more tax cuts for the very wealthy and budget-busting wars, or that spending at least $700 billion of taxpayersâ money to bail out Wall Street and the banks should be done carefully, transparently and with oversight by Congress and the courts.
We understand why he may have been reluctant to address the nation, since his contempt for regulation is a significant cause of the current mess. But he could have offered a great deal more than an eerily dispassionate primer on the credit markets in which he took no responsibility at all for the financial debacle.
He promised to protect taxpayers with his proposed bailout, but he did not explain how he would do that other than a superficial assurance that in sweeping up troubled assets, government would buy low and sell high. And he warned that âour entire economy is in dangerâ unless Congress passes his bailout plan immediately.
In the end, Mr. Bushâs appearance was just another reminder of something that has been worrying us throughout this crisis: the absence of any real national leadership, including on the campaign trail.
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Bush Aides Linked To Interrogation Talks
2008-09-25 17:36:23
Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of al-Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah,according to newly released documents. In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had proposed to use on al-Qaeda operatives held at secret C.I.A. prisons overseas, the documents show. The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials.
The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the C.I.A.âs detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed.
The documents are a list of answers provided by Ms. Rice and John B. Bellinger III, the former top lawyer at the National Security Council, to detailed questions by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating the abuse of detainees in American custody. The documents were provided to the New York Times by Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the committee.
ABC News first reported on the White House meetings in a broadcast earlier this year. Riceâs answers to the questions shed some light on the internal deliberations among senior officials but do not present a clear picture of the positions taken by participants in the debate.
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Sen. Stevens' Attorney Says He Paid Construction Bills
2008-09-25 17:35:47
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) paid every bill sent to him for extensive renovations to his home and did not lie about the work on financial disclosure forms, his attorney told jurors this morning. "The evidence will demonstrate that you are dealing here with a man who is honest and would not have intentionally violated the law," the lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, said in opening statements in Stevens' corruption trial in federal court.
Stevens, 84, one of the Senate's most powerful Republicans, is charged with failing to disclose on the documents that he received more than $250,000 in gifts and extensive renovations to his Girdwood, Alaska home, which he called the "Chalet." Prosecutors have said Stevens hoped to avoid public scrutiny of his ties to the head of an oil services company, Veco, who allegedly was funding some of the improvements.
Sullivan told jurors that Stevens was a devoted public servant who paid more than $160,000 in renovation costs. He added that Stevens and his wife, Catherine, paid every bill they received for the project, which included jacking the house up on stilts to install a new first floor.
The senator and his wife believed they had paid the fair market price for the renovations and didn't know that the oil company's chief executive, Bill Allen, was keeping other bills or costs from them, Sullivan told jurors. Allen will be a key prosecution witness.
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Scientists: Rocks May Be Oldest On Earth
2008-09-25 17:35:06
A swath of bedrock in northern Quebec may be the oldest known piece of the Earth's crust.
In an article appearing in Fridayâs issue of the journal Science, scientists report that portions of that bedrock are 4.28 billion years old, formed when the Earth was less than 300 million years old.
âThese rocks paint this picture of an early Earth that looked pretty much like the modern Earth,â said Richard Carlson of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and one of the authors of the paper.
Other scientists are intrigued, but not yet entirely convinced that the rocks are quite that old.
âThere is a certain amount of healthy skepticism that needs to play a role here,â said Stephen J. Mojzsis, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado. Dr. Mojzsis said the new research was well done, but that he thought these were younger sedimentary rocks, pressed together out of the remnants of earlier rocks that were indeed 4.28 billion years old.
âI hope that Iâm wrong,â said Dr. Mojzsis. âIf that happens, I believe there will be a land rush by geologists to northern Quebec.â
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