President Bush wasted no time whatsoever in signing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, inking it into law swiftly after its passage by the U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon. The bill passed the House by a surprising margin, especially given its unexpected defeat on Monday. The $700 billion financial industry bailout passed the House by a final vote of 263-171, a crushing victory compared to the 228-205 defeat an earlier version suffered on Monday. The 91 Republicans who voted for the bill were still outnumbered by their GOP colleagues who opposed it, but they, along with 172 Democrats, were enough to ensure the bill\u2019s passage. The final version contained numerous additional features aimed at enticing its opponents, primarily but not exclusively House Republicans, into supporting it. The changes included an increase to $250,000 in the cap on federal deposit insurance, $100 billion in tax cuts for businesses and the middle class, provisions to help 20 million middle-income taxpayers avoid the alternative minimum tax, and $8 billion in tax relief for people hit by natural disasters in Texas, Louisiana and the Midwest. Although the stock markets obviously welcomed the news, a Labor Department report that in September employers cut 159,000 jobs was apparently among the factors that kept the Dow volatile in the immediate aftermath of the bill\u2019s signing. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reportedly announced his intent to begin using his new authority quickly, with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke saying that the Fed will work closely with the administration. So it appears that commercial real estate folks might actually be able to relax more this weekend than they usually have lately. National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun told CPN that the bill\u2019s enactment will boost commercial real estate even more than it will help the single-family residential side. He sees the commercial sector as having been disrupted \u201cfar more\u201d than the residential end recently, as \u201ceven worthwhile loans were not being made.\u201d Yun told CPN that he expects to see clear signs of recovery in the commercial real estate market as soon as a month from now, with things essentially back to normal in perhaps three months. What\u2019s \u201cback to normal\u201d? According to Yun, that\u2019s when decisions are based on the fundamentals of the real estate, not on the availability of financing. There was, and still is, a lot at stake. Last night, when the outcome of this afternoon\u2019s vote was still in doubt, billionaire investor Warren Buffett told TV host Charlie Rose that the current situation \u201creally is an economic Pearl Harbor.\u201d Buffett noted that in the previous seven days, the U.S. Treasury sold $40 billion worth of T-bills at a yield of one-twentieth of one percent. That\u2019s the equivalent, Buffett said, of \u201cputting money under the mattress\u2026. You don\u2019t want 300 million Americans putting their money under the mattress.\u201d The market is just vastly overleveraged now, Buffett said. \u201cWhat looked so easy to borrow against a year ago now looks like rat poison.”\u201cThere is only one countervailing force\u201d that has the power to deleverage that much debt, he said, \u201cand that is the U.S. Treasury.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Bush wasted no time whatsoever in signing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, inking it into law swiftly after its passage by the U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon. The bill passed the House by a surprising margin, especially given its unexpected defeat on Monday. The $700 billion financial industry bailout passed the…<\/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-1003870319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n