News Today

I apologize for not being on here to comment/post as much lately, but my house still is without power, so the only time I can update is at work.

President George W. Bush announced that his administration is working feverishly to correct the sinking ship that is our economy. Does this make anyone else worried? Bush met for about 40 minutes today with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Details of the meeting, of course, were disclosed, although Bush did address the nation in a brief statement on the issue.

“The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy,” Bush said. “And I share their concerns.”

I’ll be honest, I’m concerned that Bush says he has a plan. Apparently, I’m not the only one though.

House minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) voiced his and other American’s concerns about Bush’s plan. According to Blunt, congressional Republicans “don’t feel like they understand the coherent strategy” of the Bush administration — “if there is one.”

White House administration officials declined to attend a closed-door meeting with House Republicans today.

To help fight the crisis, recession, depression, whatever you want to call it, the Federal Reserve activated $55 Billion in reserves to jump-start the market. The stock markets did get a little bit of a bounce today because of the rumor that help is on the way, but still for the second straight month the economy’s health has deteriorated. Just how bad is this going to be?

Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the country, filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this week. Merrill Lynch, another big player in the bank market, merged with Bank of America in an effort to avoid the same fate as the Lehman Brothers. AIG was bailed out with $86 billion in government money, leaving some to speculate why AIG was worth saving but Lehman Brothers was not. The crisis is on a global scale as well, as the Asian Stock Market crashed earlier this week.

“How do you decide that AIG is worthy of a bailout, but Lehman Brothers is not? There has to be some better understanding of that,” said House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-Fla.).

Kentucky Republican senator Jim Bunning had more than an earful to say about the administration’s actions.

“To say I am outraged by this would be an understatement,” Bunning said. “The greed on Wall Street is only exceeded by the stupidity of the Treasury secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve,” said Bunning.

Republicans aren’t the only ones up in arms with the Bush administration, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) complained because Paulsen postponed a meeting with senators but still found time to deliver a speech at a think-tank the same day.

John McCain voiced his displeasure with the current state of economic affairs by announcing that he would immediately fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission if elected president.

Barack Obama did his best to one-up McCain’s statement.

“In the next 47 days you can fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path… Don’t just get rid of one guy. Get rid of this administration,” said Obama. “Get rid of this philosophy. Get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problem and put somebody in there who’s going to fight for you.”