From AP via the Yahoo Finance page:
Quote
House girds for 2nd try on financial rescue
Thursday October 2, 10:12 am ET
By Charles Babington and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writers
House girds for 2nd chance with bigger, sweeter finance rescue plan after Senate passes it
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House members are getting another chance to vote on a financial bailout bill that has infuriated millions of voters after the Senate added tax cuts and other sweeteners and passed it handily.
Senators advanced the much-criticized measure in a 74-25 vote late Wednesday, sending it to the other side of the Capitol for a showdown vote expected Friday. The move was calculated to win over enough dissenting House members to get the bill through and reverse Monday's stunning defeat in the H ouse. Party leaders there planned to press rank-and-file members Thursday for the dozen converts they believe they need.
President Bush will continue lobbying, too, with the argument that businesses are having a tough time financing operations and payroll and need help. A day ahead of the House vote, Bush called business leaders to the White House on Thursday to make his case for the $700-billion package.
"The president will note how important it is to pass the financial rescue legislation to help to free up credit in our economy," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "These business owners know the consequences if the situation gets worse, so the crisis is urgent for these businesses."
On another front, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, urged people to remain calm.
"I think overall the banking system remains very sound so that's why I think it's so important for everybody to keep their head," commission Chairman Sheila Bair said on C-SPAN. "What I don't want is to see otherwise healthy institutions start to get into trouble just because of liquidity pressure ... Wall Street should be taking their cue from Main Street right now. Main Street deposits are staying there."
But the drumbeat of bad news rattled on, nevertheless. A government report said that orders to U.S. factories plunged by the largest amount in nearly two years as the credit strains smashed manufacturers with hurricane-like force.
Stocks declined on Wall Street early Thursday after the number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose last week to a seven-year high. The Dow Jones industrials fell by about 135 points, their fourth straight triple-digit move.
The bailout package was never in danger in the Senate. Senators instead played catalysts for the House, adding tax provisions popular with the left and right in a bid that House leaders hope -- but cannot guarantee -- will persuade enough of the House rank-and-file to switch from "nay" to "aye" on a highly contentious bill a month before Election Day.
Rest of the article is here: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081002/financial_meltdown.html (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081002/financial_meltdown.html)
What happens next?
Now let the investigations begin. Looks like maybe Mr. Barney will be first? Based on this article it appears Mr. Barney may have some issues.....( most likely not really any news here as Mr. Barney has been dirty in that peculiar politicians way, for a while now, the real news will be who comes next)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432501,00.html
Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest
WASHINGTON â€" Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."
A top GOP House aide agreed.
"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."
Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.
"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."
The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."
Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.
Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.
Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.
"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.
Bill Sammon is FOX News' Washington Deputy Managing Editor.
So they finally decide to put Sarbanes-Oxley to use eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related
Apparently it never applied to Fannie and Freddie and they knew this is 2004!
The Next big step:
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
OCKLAWAHA