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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (4206)	12/31/2008 3:12:27 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

In one of his last interviews before leaving office, Treasury's Paulson said: "We’re dealing with something that is really historic and we haven’t had a playbook. The reason it has been difficult is first of all, these excesses have been building up for many, many years. Secondly, we had a hopelessly outdated global architecture and regulatory authorities... in the U.S." US lacked the tools to tackle crisis By Krishna Guha in Washington Published: December 30 2008 23:35 \| Last updated: December 30 2008 23:35 The US government has had to battle the financial crisis without all the tools it required to do so effectively, Hank Paulson, the outgoing US Treasury Secretary has told the Financial Times. In one of his last interviews before leaving office, Mr Paulson said “we’ve done all this without all of the authorities that a major nation like the US needs”.... ft.com

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (4206)	12/31/2008 4:32:03 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

Treasury Drafts Broad Rules on More Auto Industry Aid (Update1) By Rebecca Christie bloomberg.com Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Treasury drafted broad guidelines for aid to the auto industry that would let officials provide funds to any company they deem important to making or financing cars. With today’s announcement, the Treasury is giving itself room to provide money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program beyond loans already committed to General Motors Corp., GMAC LLC and Chrysler LLC. That’s consistent with analysts’ speculation yesterday that suppliers, such as GM’s bankrupt former parts unit Delphi Corp., might be eligible for assistance. The Treasury guidelines may encourage more guessing on what companies and industries are next, said Vincent Reinhart, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Treasury officials “much prefer discretion, and so they would view the statement as being constructively ambiguous,” Reinhart said. “It’s appropriate that they end the year the way they spent most of it -- that is, adding uncertainty into an environment in which there’s a lot of uncertainty.” The Treasury already has provided $6 billion in aid to GMAC, the financing arm of GM, and up to $17.4 billion in financing for GM and Chrysler, using funds from the $700 billion bank-rescue package. ‘Case-by-Case’ “Treasury will determine the form, terms and conditions of any investment made pursuant to this program on a case-by-case basis,” the Treasury said in the new guidelines. “Treasury may consider, among other things, the importance of the institution to production by, or financing of, the American automotive industry.” The government will weigh “whether a major disruption of the institution’s operations would likely have a materially adverse effect on employment and thereby produce negative spillover effects on economic performance” or on credit markets, the Treasury said. This week’s funding agreement between the Treasury and GMAC opened a new rescue program for the auto industry as part of the TARP. Treasury said then that the GMAC agreement was “part of a broader program to assist the domestic automotive industry in becoming financially viable.” A Treasury official said there’s no cap or deadline for aid to the auto industry under the TARP. The bailout was originally designed to buy assets from banks and has instead become a fund for Treasury to prop up lenders, insurers, carmakers and now auto-finance companies. “We would not be surprised to see additional government funds to GM to support a Delphi solution,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Himanshu Patel said in a report yesterday. To contact the reporters on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at Rchristie4@bloomberg.net; Last Updated: December 31, 2008 14:54 EST