Quick hits on the Bailout

Summary and Text: Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008

Is preventing foreclosure really “victory”?

The 10 Most Controversial Provisions of the Housing Bill (no longer available) – It seems that in addition to bailing out anybody and everybody, the bill is quite the privacy annihilator as well. A few of my favorite snips (bolding mine) –

The bailout’s Estimated to cost $25 billion in over the next two years, but there’s no way to predict the future and estimates on this are really just wild guesses. Peter Orszag, Congressional Budget Office director, admits the actual cost is uncertain and could be as much as $100 billion.

6. Credit Card Tracking – Here’s another provision that will collect a huge amount of private information for the government. Deep inside the bill is a program requiring banks to to track, aggregate, and report information on all credit and debit card transactions to the IRS. FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey had this to say about it: “This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay’s PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America’s small businesses are breathtaking.”

9. Raising the Debt Ceiling – Going right to the central question of how much the government is willing to spend on bailing out the mortgage industry is a provision to increase the national debt ceiling by $800 billion. As Jim Quinn wrote on Nolan Chart, “this is like giving a spendaholic an increase on their Amex credit line. Give Congress the ability to spend $10.8 trillion and they will.”

Outstanding article and discussion at Rain City Guide – The Housing Crisis is like Hurricane Katrina

Learn with me, won’t you?