Sunday, September 21, 2008

Carte Blanche; take cover!

We're back in the days of Dumas' Cardinal Richelieu (*), as London Banker points out. He quotes Section 8 of the proposed new US financial legislation:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

How is this to be subjected to democratic accountability?

I essayed a paranoid spoof on Friday, only to find it exceeded by reality. See Karl Denninger for more details of the amazing, autocratic powers proposed in the new US financial legislation.

This is not a sweary blog, but if that becomes law, head for the bl**dy hills.

Denninger also explains how the $700 billion limit can be manipulated to absorb infinite amounts of bad debt, by discounting on resale and then taking on more fresh garbage. He says:

I predict that if this passes it will precipitate the mother and father of all financial panics, although exactly when the "short bus" riders who inhabit the equity market will figure it out remains to be seen.

_____________________________

(*) see Wikipedia:

"Dec. 3, 1627

It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.

Richelieu"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Democracy? When Congress proves itself terminally frivolous, when the two Presidential candidates have nothing to say of the least relevance, when the Lame Dud has no contribution to make, of course there's no Democracy. It has proved itself incapable. The problem now is that the "solution" being offered by the two technocrats in charge of the USA is a lousy one. What the US needs is someone who sees to the bottom of the problem in the way that Churchill did in the 30s. But their constitution seems to exclude that possibility (though you could argue that The Constitution doesn't, but then no one pays any attention to that except when it doesn't much matter). Come to think of it, last time we were in a real pickle, we turned to the democrat Churchill; the Yanks had turned to the quasi-fascist FDR. There's a cheering thought, eh?

James Higham said...

Chuckle...

This is not a sweary blog, but if that becomes law, head for the bl**dy hills.

Indeed you are not a natural swearer.

Anonymous said...

Lettres de cachet replaced by Lettres de cash?