Senate Bail Out Bill Text

Attached is the actual Senate Bill. It's 451 pages.

I'll post analysis and update this as I find them.

Still appears to bail out foreign banks. Has a SEC suspension of the mark-to-market rule. I believe people focusing on on this is a smoke screen. The real issue is the pricing of assets and how does that unclog the credit markets?

It's still seemingly paying possibly way too much on worthless assets and on top of it...

The mark-to-market rule is supposed to be in place of the Paulson bill, not with the Paulson bill which implies even more the US taxpayer will pay way too much for these assets.

Either they have the assets be completely transparent if the US taxpayer is on the hook for them OR they allow the banks to muddle the accounting for a moment as a stop gap.

Update: Credit Slips, which is Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren's affiliated blog has an analysis up. The post is by Adam Levitin a Georgetown U. Law Prof.:

The additional 341 pages in the Senate version have nothing to do with the bailout per se, but instead are an energy bill and a tax bill. In short, the Senate version is the same as the failed House version, but with the addition of (1) the irrelevant FDIC provision, and (2) other unrelated legislation. And the House version was just a 110-page expansion of the Paulson's original two-and-a-half page proposal that had lots of extra window-dressing, but little in the way of new substantive provisions that are actually mandatory, enforceable, and monitorable. This means that the Senate version of the bailout bill has the same flaws as the original Paulson bill. (Gotta hand it to Hank--he's concise.)

Thank God we have people who can parse legislation who also blog. More to follow.

Update2: The full bill is now uploaded.

Calculated Risk found a very nice clause:

SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

Update3: Clinton Labor Sec. Robert Reich Weighs In:

In fact, the bailout bill isn't really taxpayer supported. It will be funded by additional federal debt, issued mostly to foreign governments -- especially the Chinese and in the Middle East. And, strictly speaking, it's not even a bailout. The Treasury will buy and hold mortgage-backed securities whose value is now unknown because there's no market for them, until housing prices start rising again, by which time the securities should be worth something -- perhaps even more than the Treasury pays for them. (Note that there continues to be great confusion about the extent to which the Treasury will hold a reverse auction, paying banks the minimum price at which they're willing to sell the securities -- perhaps 20 cents on the dollar -- or whether the Treasury will buy the securities outright for their face values and take warrants or shares of stock in return.)

But whatever it's called and however it's financed, it's still an outrage. America's foreign policy is made no more flexible by going into deeper hock to the Chinese and the Middle East. And the deal still subjects American taxpayers to some risk, especially if the housing market doesn't bounce back for many years. Worse, the bill can't help but prop up the earnings many Wall Street executives whose malfeasance, greed, and stupidity got us into this mess in the first place. And it does nothing for average Americans except avoid economic calamity. (The provision ostensibly helping distressed homeowners is to be used at the discretion of the Treasury Department, so it's mostly a sham.)

Update4:

A New Video comparing Senator Byron Dorgan's warnings from 1999 and now. Byron Dorgan has an economics background and has been one of the best Senators to represent America's interests.

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Paul O'Neil calls Senate Bill Crazy, Stupid and Insane

I'd say thar's some pretty strong words! Beyond these explicatives what does he think should be done?

Bloomberg:

His plan to deal with the crisis would start with a ``discounted cash-flow analysis'' of distressed instruments that are clogging the financial system. The government would guarantee the assets, paring back the support as principal and interest payments were made, he said.

Liquidity Boost

``That should take care of the liquidity problem because if they have a government guarantee at a specified level they should trade just like cash,'' O'Neill said.

He likened his solution to the Treasury's decision Sept. 19 to guarantee domestic money-market funds for a year to try to stop a run on what traditionally have been among the safest of investments.

To replenish capital in banks, the government should make 20-year loans to institutions and charge 2 percentage points above the government's borrowing rate, he said. Regulators could count the loans as part of the banks' capital base, he added. Paying the premium would give banks an incentive to retire the government loans faster, he said.

Read he entire article, anyone who gets fired by Bush has some credibility in my opinion.

bail out for producers?

I only heard it said once and seems to have been hushed since but does this bill include something like 400 mil for hollywood producers?

looks like

Section 503. bill text.

Looks like they extended their period for "deductions" so yes indeed.