As we’ve noted, Monday the federal government rolled out a new plan for the banks in which our preferred stock from the last deal could be converted into common stock. Without going into too much detail, this would strengthen the banks financial position — at least in a notational sense. And it wouldn’t require a direct injection of new money from the Feds. However, it amounts to a much better deal for the banks because it relieves them of having to pay us dividends and various other rights attached to preferred stock ownership. So we don’t have to pay more money, just agree not to get the money we’re currently entitled to.
In any case, the Dems don’t really seem to be raising much of a ruckus over this, perhaps because it’s a Democratic president calling the shots.
On the other hand, as Elana Schor found out yesterday when talking to various Republican lawmakers, Republicans are criticizing the plan — and pinpointing a lot of the key weaknesses. That’s good in one sense. But since they aren’t willing to entertain the other option — some form of nationalization — they’re criticizing this plan while refusing to sign on for the only obvious alternative.
So now that the government has released all those new documents on how former CIA No. 3 Dusty Foggo was using agency resources hidden in the black ops budget to benefit his pal Brent Wilkes, we’re tying to mine them for good stories. Zack Roth is going through the docs now and already found one little gem about the kind of guy Foggo is, and he’s ready to mine your comments for things you find as you go through the documents. Have fun.
TPM Reader BH gets it right:
Regarding Jindal’s speech last night, I am seeing a fair amount of negative comments on the delivery. While the delivery was atrocious – really atrocious – I think this misses the more important problem.
Admittedly I was also struggling to get past the “Kenneth the Page” thing, but what really struck me was the poor substance of the speech. To my ear, it sounded like a complete rehash of the Republican talking points we have been hearing since Reagan. It might be true that Jindal is a smart, honest guy and that he really believes excessive government is the problem, but Republicans just don’t have any credibility with this argument right now.
Unfortunately for Jindal (and the country), Republicans used that same argument for decades while the intrusiveness of our government and the country’s deficits continued to grow at unprecedented rates. His party used the same arguments while they happily used the government to transfer obscene amounts of public wealth to a small sliver of the population and completely trash our economy.
Simply put, his party has been the one controlling our government for a long, long time. The problem isn’t government, it’s Republican government – and everyone knows it.
TPM Reader BW:
I have always been skeptical of the talk of a post-racial America but when Bobby Jindal spoke and the immediate outpouring of commentary was to compare him to perhaps the single whitest character in America (Kenneth the Page),
the country was clearly seeing past skin color.If the lesson is that people really are being judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, the Jindal verdict cannot possibly bode well for Republicans.