stimulus-crisis

Buy American protectionism. The stimulus plan passed the house with the Buy American clause. It looks like political will is behind it. Obama's transparency plan - listing the spending on a web site - seems to me to strengthen these protectionist provisions. I think the American people would cringe at the site of Japanese or Chinese steel purchased with "their stimulus money" while steel plants in the US are going under. The demagogues in media and the parties would have a field-day with that just in time for midterm elections. What's more all the Americans I know have have never really caught on to international trade thing, most think the WTO has black helicopters.





White House reviewing Buy American measure: Gibbs | Reuters

The Obama administration is still mulling its position on Buy American steel provisions approved this week by the House of Representatives and that have caused concern among trading partners, a White House spokesman said on Friday.

"The administration is reviewing those provisions as part of the recovery plan, and that review is continuing," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

White House reviewing 'Buy American' plan - Forbes.com

Vice President Joe Biden told CNBC on Thursday he believed
it was legitimate to have some portions of "Buy American" in
the stimulus plan and disagreed with those who said it was a
harbinger of protectionism.

The article goes on to mention government procurement and WTO legislation. Call it steel two.

A Multi-Pronged Bank Plan - washingtonpost.com

But Geithner told lawmakers this month that to address the current crisis, a government "bad bank" would be "enormously complicated to get right," and he raised concerns about its cost.

The scope of the toxic asset problem has reached $2 trillion, by the conservative estimates of banking analysts. The Treasury Department, however, has only about $320 billion left in the rescue program.

Geithner and other senior members of Obama's economic team are unlikely to pin their hopes on a single solution such as the Resolution Trust Corp. to solve the worsening crisis, sources said. Instead they prefer a more nuanced approach so they can apply specific fixes tailored to the host of problems facing the financial system.

Why they won't create a bad bank or buy up the toxic assets as first suggested for TARP. There they go, oh so clever with their nuanced approach.
Some may argue that a nuanced approach to finance got us in this pickle.

why not a bad bank. Or toxic asset buy-up plan