Warren, someone is playing games , this was not me either…

and they are very well funded by peterson and maybe even influential

I think shareholders do better with the Govt. as a co-owner, would they rather get diluted and be govt. assisted or wiped out?, Again it depends on how much equity and at what price they get the “help”.

“$700 Billion Market Bailout: Piling on more Debt
The Administration released over the weekend proposed legislation that would give the Secretary of the Treasury sweeping authority to purchase “on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary” up to $700 billion of “mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.”

The Treasury would issue new Treasury debt to finance the purchases. In order to accommodate the new debt, the bill would increase the statutory limit on the public debt to $11.3 trillion. When the Bush Administration took office in 2001, the public debt was half that amount, at $5.7 trillion.

There is ongoing discussion among congressional staff, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management Budget (OMB), about how to “score” the Treasury purchases. The draft legislation states that the “cost of mortgage-related assets…shall be determined as provided under the Federal Credit Reform Act….” However, this would be an odd formulation, since the Credit Reform Act applies to direct loans and loan guarantees originated by the government — not the purchase of market assets.

Regardless of how the “scoring” issues are resolved, the bottom line is that the Treasury would be borrowing up to $700 billion in order to purchase mortgage-related assets–and this borrowing would add substantially to the public debt, and U.S. indebtedness to foreign lenders.

Of particular importance, the ballooning debt would add substantially to annual interest payments by the Federal government. Net interest payments, already nearly $250 billion per year, consume more than one in five income tax dollars. The new Treasury borrowing would take an increasing bite out of income tax revenues–and leave future generations with the tab for this generation’s market meltdown.

Key congressional Democrats have already signaled changes they would like to see in the Treasury proposal:

–Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) said he would like to add provisions that set tough limits on executive compensation for companies participating in the program, allow the government to take shares in those firms, and create an Emergency Oversight Board;

–House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) said he agrees with the Senate approach and would also lilke to allow bankruptcy judges to reduce the principal and terms on primary residence mortgages; and

–Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) wants to add a provision allowing for court review of the Treasury bailout, which is specifically barred by the Administration bill.

The bailout legislation is likely to be added to a Continuing Resolution that Congress must pass by September 30, 2008 in order to keep the government functioning when the new fiscal year begins on October 1.

i do suggest that knowing govt help means loss of shareholder value doesn’t add a reason for investors to buy stocks, for better or for worse.

also, the way i see it, this program doesn’t spend any taxpayer money to speak of. the govt trades gov secs for highly discounted mtg paper. the question longer term is whether the cash flow from the discounted mtgs is sufficient to ‘retire’ the tsy secs. if not, the difference is ‘taxpayer money’ but it’s probably not a big number either way