Bush says administration dealing with economy

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: MSNBC

WASHINGTON - President Bush, trying to calm turmoil in financial markets, said Monday that his administration is “on top of the situation” in dealing with the slumping economy.

“One thing is for certain, we’re in challenging times,” the president said after meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other senior economic advisers. “But another thing is for certain: We’ve taken strong, decisive action.”

The president commended the Federal Reserve for its urgent actions over the weekend. He praised Paulson for working with the Fed and showing “the country and the world that the United States is on top of the situation.”

“In the long run, our economy is going to be fine,” Bush said. “Right now we’re dealing with a difficult situation.”

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23673100/

[Birthmark]

1. I hope they're not dealing.

If they take one card out of that house the whole thing will fall!! :evilgrin:

[Owl]

3. Touché!

[saigon68]

22. Welfare for the Rich Coming "SOON" to a Bank near you

[Selatius]

2. What's needed is re-implementation of the Glass-Steagall Act repealed under Clinton.

That law, passed under FDR, prevented bank consolidation between commercial and investment banks. The second that law was repealed, more investors entered the housing markets to begin "house flipping." This necessarily caused double-digit inflation in the market for homes as they horde properties to drive up prices and then sell at the higher price bit by bit.

Before the Repubs and Bill Clinton changed the tax laws, if you sold a home you did not live in, such as what house flippers usually do, you had to pay capital gains tax on it. Now, you don't if you can navigate the loophole written into the law. I have no problem with people selling the home they live in and not paying capital gains because most people who do that are not investors. They are likely working class folks who rely on payroll income to live, not investment income.

[aquart]

10. YES! I was so annoyed about that at the time.

Feel free to castigate Bill on this one. It's deserved.

[plasticsundance]

13. Perhaps ... but the Bush Administration went out of its way to foster the subprime debacle

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783_pf.html

[martymar64]

21. For reasons like this, we need to dissolve the Federal system

Washington DC has been sucking the life out of the states for too long. It' s time for the US to go the way f it's old rival the Soviet Union and dissolve into several regional countries.

Hail Cascadia!

[tinrobot]

4. Please stay away, Mr Bush...

Everything you touch turns to crap.

[magellan]

5. Too late. n/t

[FightingIrish]

6. The best way to get out of the ditch

is to get rid of the idiot that drove us into the ditch. In most countries, a leader who had failed this badly would resign or be driven out of office.

[Harry Monroe]

7. They're "on top of the situation"??

We're in deep shit!!!

[fasttense]

8. Bailouts all around except for

you the workers. A banana republic at its worst.

[saigon68]

23. No bailouts for the Disabled Vets, the Hungry, the Homeless

Bastards

[Mountainman]

9. I'm sure the markets feel better now that idiot boy is on top of things.

He doesn't even know the price of gasoline.

[BulletproofLandshark]

11. Forgive me if I'm just not too confident about that.

Given that his policies made this possible to begin with.

[knight_of_the_star]

12. Run to the hills!

Bush said he's handling the economy, look how well that turned out at Harken!!!

[Doctor_J]

14. Shit. That will send the market a ways farther downhill

Everything * has ever touched.

[corporatemedia]

15. This cowboy was "on top of the situation", too......

...and then, BOOM !

[KansDem]

16. Photo of the administration dealing with a terrorist attack...

Photo of administration dealing with a natural disaster...



Why am I not comforted?

edited for spelling...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. Bush dealing with a door:

[BigDogDistrict44]

17. Problem is it is the Dubi economy Bush is helping

We need change now

[truthisfreedom]

19. Strong decisive action? The only thing strong is the smell. You're counterfeiting money, bush.

That's your solution?

[haymakeragain]

20. Oh thank goodness, I can relax. Everybody relax,

Bush is on it.

[fshrink]

24. That's the whole problem indeed. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

25. How are they dealing?

Seven card stud, nothing wild, jacks or better to open, trips to win?

[Algorem]

26. don't worry,president richie rich kid'll help us.