With the U.S. House of Representatives not scheduled to be in session again until Thursday, the stage today was set for lots of talk but no action, temporarily at least, on the $700 billion federal legislation intended to rescue a financial system in crisis. The House yesterday defeated the bill 228-205, triggering a record-setting drop in the Dow. President Bush pointed out that the $700 billion price tag to start restoring confidence in the financial markets, although it\u2019s obviously sticking in many legislators\u2019 and voters\u2019 craws, is nonetheless smaller than the $1 trillion in value lost yesterday in the stock market. In a campaign address at the University of Nevada in Reno shortly after noon EST, Sen. Barack Obama compared the situation to a neighbor\u2019s house being on fire and endangering one\u2019s own house. \u201cRight now our job is to put the fire out,\u201d he said, and once that\u2019s done, we can then look into the cause of the fire. \u201cThis is no longer Wall Street\u2019s crisis,\u201d Obama said, \u201cthis is America\u2019s crisis.\u201d Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden told CNBC early this afternoon that although he expects the bailout bill to pass, he thinks that the bill\u2019s current form is better than what was originally proposed and that he thinks additional work by Congress will improve it further. Breeden said he thinks that perhaps a bill that\u2019s somewhat smaller in scope, at least initially, would be a good idea. He also said that he favors an increase in the amount of FDIC insurance for individual savers\u2019 accounts, as espoused by both presidential candidates. Finally, just as excess leverage is a key problem in the financial markets, Breeden said he supports helping homeowners to reduce their home loan leverage. At midday, the Dow was rallying from yesterday\u2019s huge loss, up nearly 300 and hovering at around 10,650. The S&P and NASDAQ were also up. Meanwhile the European Commission issued a statement calling on the U.S. government to act decisively in this crisis for the good of the world\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the U.S. House of Representatives not scheduled to be in session again until Thursday, the stage today was set for lots of talk but no action, temporarily at least, on the $700 billion federal legislation intended to rescue a financial system in crisis. The House yesterday defeated the bill 228-205, triggering a record-setting drop…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003856502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n