The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.
How is the troika trying to do this? By setting up Enron-type “special purpose vehicles” to avoid giving money directly to in-danger financial institutions.
Ahh, we’ve reached the nadir of financial neoliberalism in the Democratic party when the President of the United States and his top financial advisors are taking pages from Enron’s playbook.
Of course, we have a second, pull quote nutgraf on page 2:
“They are basically trying to launder the money to avoid complying with the plain language of the law,” said David Zaring, a former Justice Department attorney who defended the government from lawsuits involving related legal issues. “They are trying to create a loophole to ignore Congress, and I think the courts will think that it’s ridiculous.”
We can only hope somebody sues to see if the courts agree, failure of Congress to pass a veto-proof forbidding of this, and that the courts do indeed rule it’s ridiculous.
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