Obama's Green Agenda

A story can't get "a little lost" all by itself. It needs help from the people who – what was that word – oh, yeah, report. Do you suppose health care and energy issues might have significantly wider-ranging and longer-lasting impact than the squawk over corporate bonuses?
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It's called news judgment. Or has that function been ceded to Sludge and his flashing lights?

got a little lost in last week's AIG madness
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And whose fault was that?
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You are beneath contempt.

Before AIG altered the mental state of politicians and the chattering classes
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==quote fixed==
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You are beneath contempt.

Jay Newton-Small
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Ezra Klein describes Treasury's plan to give taxpayer money to hedge managers so that they buy toxic stocks in pools of mortgages from banks like this:
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Brad DeLong, I think, would argue that the private sector's risk aversion is currently magnified beyond all reason, and so a plan that artificially corrects for some of that risk aversion is likely to approximate something closer to the actual price of the assets than a plan that does not correct for that risk aversion.
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But this is not the market at work. It is the Treasury Department at work. The government is basically guessing at the price of these assets and laundering their guess through private investors who are in turn demanding a huge payoff to participate.

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Is Ezra Klein correct in that description?

Thanks for getting around to reporting on the longer term legislative agenda. I have to note that the AIG minidrama was a Congressional Staged Event and it's certainly not the press corps' fault that we've been distracted from the business of governing by a ritual public flogging.
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Let me also state that pushing health care through the reconciliation but not energy makes sense. If the Republicans want to scream, its better that the two issues NOT get lumped together lest one drag the other down. Plus the energy initiatives have a longer shelf-life. I get the feeling that health care MUST be done this year.

JNS-- Are you saying that it takes 15 years to get anything thoroughly debated in Congress?

JNS--- If I remember correctly that spin story was your second post on the subject. Your first post shouted fire and your second post was asking everyone why they were running, so if anyone is being disingenuous here it is you!
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I'm sure someone will link to those previous posts shortly.

Thank you so much for responding to commentary, Jay Newton-Small; it is very much appreciated!
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Jay Newton-Small wrote:
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There's something about this [AIG bonus] scandal that feels spun.
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But why all the furious spinning? Because, I'm told, very soon the Administration is going to have to come back to Congress hat in hand and ask for upwards of another $750 billion in bank bailout money.

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But...if Geithner's plan works, why would they need $750 billion more?

@SZ,
Surely you're aware that the JNS quote predates the details Geithner's plan becoming public.....
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Again the Bonus Theater and the Jet Drama are all ways that our baser emotions can be tapped to distract us from the systemic nature of the whole problem.
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Quoting myself:
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Much of our political thought involves imagining undeserving people who are getting benefits at our expense. It works in two directions. Whether you imagine shiftless unemployed people who nevertheless manage to go to doctors and send their kids to school, or fat-cat bank executives flying down to the VI for 'retreats' on their yachts on the government dime, the process of imagining itself drives our emotional reaction and eventually our voting behavior.

Much of what we face now will be a matter of allocating discomfort so that we feel we're rising and falling together, but the process of pointing outward to decide who should be hurting hasn't helped us so far and won't help us in the long run.
http://phd9.blogspot.com/2009/02/much-of-our-political-thought-involves.html

Jay Newton-Small:
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Thank you for that helpful clarification.
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Geithner's plan needs that $750 billion TO work -- it's a massive three-stage undertaking that will require huge infusions of cash from the government to work including that money.
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I'm going to have to go back to researching.
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My understanding so far based on NY Times' leak reporting is that Treasury is going to use the rest of the original TARP money plus an $802 billion loan coming directly from the Federal Reserve (which doesn't need Congress to approve it), but ABC News is reporting it this way:
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The new program will use between $75 billion-$100 billion of Treasury funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and leverage $500 billion with the potential to expand to $1 trillion of private purchasing power with financing from the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
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Using the Fed and the FDIC, the government will leverage private capital by co-investing with the private sector. If the private sector has financing provided by the government, buying these assets becomes a more attractive option.

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That's an idiotic way of saying that the Federal Reserve will lend a hand-picked group private investors up to a trillion dollars, but that's the reporting.
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Where does that extra $750 billion FROM CONGRESS come in again?

JNS -- I don't know that this article makes you Kramer, but if straight reporting results in fire consistently, then I have to assume reasonably intelligent people will figure that out and if they continue to do it their intention is to instigate conflict.
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Are you the worst out there, of course not there are definitely others at Time who are far more guilty of this behavior. Nevertheless, your second post made me question your sincerity because you seem to consistently report whatever your GOP sources tell you while never challenging their half truths, innuendos, and out right lies within the articles that you supposedly do straight forward reporting.
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It's not enough to come back later and shed doubt on their claims, your straight forward reporting ought to include from the outset of what they say, why the may be saying it, how they benefit from saying, what the other sides are saying, etc. It's the one-sidedness or GOP geared format of your reporting that cast doubts on you intentions