(This letter was sent to Congress on Wed Sept 24 2008 regarding the Treasury plan as outlined on that date. It does not reflect all signatories views on subesquent plans or modifications of the bill)

Yep. As of Sep 24, the bill was nothing more than the uplift-one-man-Paulson-Plan (apologies to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band - based on a plan...). It would have been cuh-ray-zee to push ahead with his whacky notion of no judicial review.

The bill that was just voted down, however, had input from more parties, and some oversight additions by and concessions to Republicans, but was lean and un-earmarked. That bill didn't "drop" until what, Saturday or Sunday night? Enough time for adequate review? Well, it may not sound like it. I wish they more time. But I did hear several pundits report to have read the whole bill before the voting was in full swing Monday. Nobody loved it, but those who weren't dead set against any bill seemed to find it acceptable.

That's also how Steve Forbes described the bailout. Cheryl Casone reports, "I spoke with [Steve Forbes] last night. He feels, and I agree, that this was not the best plan, but the country needs “a” plan."

From Forbes late Tuesday:

...on that one [AIG] I think the taxpayers are going to come out ahead when they break this company up--many good parts to it, only one part of it was bad, the rest of it was excellent. So we'll come out ahead on that one. ...

VAN SUSTEREN: We only have 30 seconds left. For someone who makes less than $50,000 a year, how is this crisis going to affect them?

FORBES: It's going to affect them if they don't get the bank system back in shape. It means they're not going to able to get credit say to buy a new car. They may lose their jobs.

This thing is very serious. They've got to do something in the next few days.

VAN SUSTEREN: It really is a matter of a few days?

FORBES: I think if people feel this thing is going to drift on--the credit system, Greta, has already seized up. It's already starting to suffer cardiac arrest. Banks are clutching the money. And when they clutch money, that means the economy is not getting it, and that's bad.

More Forbes takes are here, (No thanks to the lovable but linkless Jon at ExUrbanLeague. Even after an email...)

Steve Forbes declared Monday the U.S. economy is in “cardiac arrest” and will plunge into “something we haven’t seen since the early 1930s” if Congress doesn’t come to the urgent rescue of American financial institutions.

“You have to have faith that at some point these people will come to their senses, and do things that have to be done to stabilize the patient, and then we can take positive measures, like a strong dollar, like tax cuts, to get our economy in shape so that it can start to recover next year,” Forbes told Newsmax in an exclusive interview late Monday afternoon. “But right now we’ve got to make sure the patient doesn’t die. It’s in cardiac arrest and the doctors have decided to take a recess.”

and here,

People do feel that unseen forces are taking over, and they are physiologically disruptive as well. People cannot understand why all this is happening. So this weak dollar has created the bubble, popped the bubble and is preventing a recovery in the housing market. There is no shortage of money in the US or the global economy but people are clutching the money out of fear, and not putting it to work.

and here.

Paul Maidment: Have we seen the end of "too big to fail" as a philosophy?

Steve Forbes: No, we haven't seen the end of "too big to fail," uh, "too big to fail," or any big failure is damaging is when it's unexpected. Bear in March was unexpected; Lehman was not; Merrill Lynch has been rumored. So Thain has decided he can't keep it independent, let's do a sensible merger, even if it was a quick one.

But in terms of AIG, that is a shock. Why should a commercial insurance company--it's not a bank, it's not where people have deposits--that's the shocker, and there I think the regulators would be well-advised, instead of trying to do a distress sale, to take a few months and have an orderly break up of the company. Most of the assets are money good, including their craft-leasing business, those things can do very well, can fetch a good price in a normal market.

But we're not in a normal market--and, I mean, what do you think AIG is saying about the future prospects--the crisis that we're in now will be continuing for three, six, nine months, a year?

No, for AIG, it's more like three, six, nine days. People are assuming, shareholders are assuming, the thing is going to go the way of Lehman, Bear, and they want out. And so the regulators should say, "Time out. Most of the assets are good; we're having an orderly break up of the company. We're not going to have a distress sale, so you're not going to get $10 worth of assets for 10 cents," and most of the assets are money good. And that's where, say, setting up a resolution trust corporation--if there's junk, you can throw it in there--but the company itself--the business itself, the insurance entity itself, most of it--is money good.

But we're obviously now in a U.S. presidential election season, do you think there's an appetite-- among those in the political world or even the taxpayer--to throw the sort of money or guarantees toward a modern RTC, that would be required to do that?

Well, I think--what is the alternative? Do you want to go to your local bank and say the local bank says the regulators won't let it lend to the hardware store, even though the hardware store is perfectly good and just needs money to finance its inventory as a normal part of business. People can understand that, and since shareholders have been rather wiped out, there's no bailout there. So again, it's orderly liquidation. It's not coming in and saying, "We're going to nationalize the company." Its how do you do it in a way that's preserving the essence--without burning the house down.