User talk:Ronnotel/Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

Article merger

The proposal is to combine all content related to topic describing the events leading up to the bill, and legislative negotiation, and news content and commentary in one place. The sensible place to do so is at the name of the bill as stated in the text of the bill. Merge Proposed bailout of U.S. financial system (2008) into the surviving article name Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 It appears since the text of this article is copied from the bill summary itself, there's not much lost by blanking this article and moving to this title, with the aid of an admin.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 02:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

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Discussion

• Though the proposal, structured as an amendment to an unrelated bill was not accepted, it's clear that the topic will come before both houses again. The proposal will continue to be the vehicle of further legislative action, as an inspection of news articles of the day reveals. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 13:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Chronology

• The House vehicle for the legislation was an amendment to H.R. 3997 on September 29, 2008. The amendment was not accepted.
• The Senate vehicle on October 1, 2008 is to amend HR1424, by voting to substitute the language of HR1424 with the revised text of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
• With the Senate acceptance of the amendment, and subsequent passing of the amended bill, HR 1424 was sent to the House for consideration.
• The bill, HR1424, was acted on by the House and voted on October 3 by 263-171 to enact the bill into law.

Approve the merger

• In favor of the merger (or move) as the proposer. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 02:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• In favor of moving (renaming) Proposed bailout of U.S. financial system (2008) to Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and deleting this page. This is the proper title for the bill and it's background — Preceding unsigned comment added by Work permit (talk • contribs) 06:26, September 29, 2008
• Yes, that makes sense.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 10:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• In favor as the proposed E.E.S.A seems likely to play a role in future discussions of this topic.
• 'In favor That looks like it will be the official name for the bailout. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.126.142 (talk) 16:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support the merger, with the qualification that the article should not be merged until after the proposed legislative act becomes law; i.e., after the US President signs whatever comes out of the sausage grinder today. Also, I think it is wise to copy the entire merged article in, as suggested by the one vote against the merge, then clean up in subsequent edits. N2e (talk) 17:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• In Favor of the merger. --146.115.122.89 (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• In favor of the merger Grundle2600 (talk) 01:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• In favor of the merger: "Proposed bailout of United States financial system" isn't a very long-term title: The specific name for the act might not be a good choice either, though, if the final bill has a different name. Perhaps we could go with something like "2008 Financial crisis rescue package"? Maratanos (talk) 03:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• In favour I generally support centralizing information during fast-moving events so that edits can become part of the article quickly, and good information quickly rises to the fore. This is a clear-cut case in my view. Huadpe (talk) 04:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support The word "bailout" should be avoided in the title of an article (colloq.), "Proposed" pushes the boundaries of speculation. It makes no sense to have a second article at this point. Merge to appropriate article-entity, the bill itself. Other material can end up in the final resting place of the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 article series.--ZayZayEM (talk) 06:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• In favour, seems logical. Acastus69 (talk) 07:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Merge As I said in Talk:Liquidity crisis of September 2008; it seems like Liquidity crisis of September 2008, Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008, and Proposed_bailout_of_United_States_financial_system, among others, are really all aspects of the same central article/event- is there a reason to have a string of related, but underdeveloped articles, rather than one central strong article from which important features of these current events can be drawn once perspective is available. Darker Dreams (talk) 18:07, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Merge. A "bailout" is a slang term. "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" is the actual technical legal term. However, it is not yet a law - just a bill. Perhaps, hold off until some measure by Congress has been passed. KyuuA4 (talk) 22:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Merge. About the same thing. [[User:Tutthoth-Ankhre|Tutthoth-Ankhre~ The Pharaoh of the Universe]] (talk) 19:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
• Merge. Seems logical. Arjun G. Menon (talk · mail) 20:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Against the merger

• Against. Usually part of the article gets dropped in the merger. Would be ok if total article is copied into a Lead_up_to_bill at bottom of article. Maybe the split should be Text_OF_Emergency_Economic_Stabilization and second article which is discussion of bailout. 71.131.15.18 (talk) 14:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against. It's better to have a page on the actual text and substance of the act, and one on the proposed wider bailout in general. Little Professor (talk) 18:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against, based exclusively on the defeat of the act in the title. A new act which passes might well be named differently, and the unexpected outcome of the House vote is noteworthy regardless of how the bailout proposals proceed. RandomP (talk) 18:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against -- I agree that the topics should be merged someday but if anything EESA should be merged into Proposed bailout of U.S. financial system (2008). The EESA article was prematurely created... and as of today (29 Sep) the EESA is still 'proposed' and is in danger of not passing.([1]) MPS (talk) 18:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against
  • both articles are rapidly changing -- this may be a poor time for a merge
  • The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is not the only proposed remedy for the 2008 US Financial system collapse now in progress (some pundits have proposed doing nothing, for example, and allowing the collapse).
  • There may be several Bills written (House and Senate) before an Act is eventually passed by one or both houses.
  • --SV Resolution(Talk) 23:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against - EESA should be a section of the larger topic of the proposed bailout which has had many facets only one part of which (albeit a large part) was/is the EESA. Shadow007 (talk) 04:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against - At this point in time, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 has yet to materialize. It may not even happen, in which case "proposed bailout" is more appropriate. If Congress does end up passing a bill, maybe we could revisit this issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Keysturns (talk • contribs) 11:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose merger, I think there have been multiple proposed bailouts which didn't make it into the act. The Paulsen plan was not part of the act although Congress used it as a starting point. One is broader than the other. gren グレン 12:10, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Failure of the legislation means this title is probably moot. The other article is far more visible. Ronnotel (talk) 12:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - as the legislation failed, they are two separate issues. One is legislation and one is an ongoing debate. Scapler (talk) 22:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose per the other arguments above. Also, so it is clear we need two separate pages because they are two separate issues (this is the legislation, the other is the general debate and ideas about Paulson's plan), especially since the act failed anyway. It is also clear to me that "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" is not the WP:COMMONNAME of the ongoing discussions. Deamon138 (talk) 23:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Against, keep discussion of text and discussion of its history seperate; too unweildy otherwise. However, I have to say the title Proposed bailout of U.S. financial system sounds more like tabloid newspaper headline slang than an encyclopedia article, perhaps both could be renamed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Text) and Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Background) Ex nihil (talk) 02:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

• Neutral — much of the content from Proposed bailout of U.S. financial system (2008) needs to be merged here, but there are alternatives to this bill that will need to be collectively discussed in a more abstract article.   — C M B J   02:07, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment The future of the bill is in doubt, and the bill will probably go through name changes on its journey through Congress. I'd like to wait until there's more certainty about the bill, and would then support the merge. We could also let this be a detailed look at the bill, with the "Proposed ..." article pointing here with a "main" template and having history, summary of the Paulson proposal, etc. --JaGa^talk 04:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral At first it seemed an obvious merge, but from reading the comments it appears that it may be appropriate to have an article dealing with the overall issues of the rescue plan for the US financial crisis, while another one deals with the specifics of the Act proposed to restore confidence in the market. While elements of each article could be summarised in the other, that doesn't neccessarily mean both should be shoved together. Also, a large amount of the problem with Proposed bailout of United States financial system is to do with the name, but that is a different issue, and should be discussed under a proposed move of the name. I note the comments above that while all this is happening, it may be worth waiting to see what emerges, and that makes sense. SilkTork *^YES! 08:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think it would be premature to consider merging or restructuring these two articles today. The situation should be clearer in a few days time, and one of the problems of trying to catalogue contemporary history is that it is difficult to show how the outcomes arrive. Please reconsider this after the position is clearer. Rif Winfield (talk) 10:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments section of the Article

Needs to go ASAP. It's WP:OR. Grsz^talk 19:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it adds nothing to this article. AndrewMcinally (talk) 20:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Section removed. It now says that the developed article should be consulted: Proposed bailout of United States financial system -- Yellowdesk (talk) 02:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

"Unexpected"/"surprising"/"shock" rejection

I think it's quite a neutral statement to make that the rejection by the House was unexpected. People certainly did not expect it, either on the financial markets or in public statements. The UK Times goes with "shock", which is a bit newspaper-y.

I just heard a news claim that the stock market drop was the most sudden intraday plunge in history, so if we can find a ref for that, that would be a well-supported statement.

I do think it's omission not to point out in the lead paragraph that this very much was a surprise, went against the positions of the White House, both presidential candidates, the Treasury, the minority and majority leadership of the House, the committee ... if it's not a surprising rejection, what is?

RandomP (talk) 19:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I would say it was "expected", but that would be POV in the other direction. 1. The phone calls to Senators were running 8 to 1 against depend on which poll you believe and this is re-election season. 2. The stock market correctly predicted it would not pass by dropping 300 points before the vote was taken. Better to just say "bill rejected" rather than "expected" or "unexpected", especially in the intro sentence. Also, we are already had a run on the bank (Washington Mutual) last week, even though we have FDIC insurance nowadays, so probably better to tone it down and not sensationalize. 71.131.31.84 (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

CopyVio

I took this page at face value, and assumed it was the offical summary of the act, but it appears to be a summary by Marketwatch.com, which it appears here is copyrighted by Marketwatch. Other websites I have looked at on Google which mention this summary either have the copyright Marketwatch statement or have a direct link to the marketwatch website. I'd be interested in this article containing some of the Act with comments, and using the Marketwatch summary as a reference source, but it would clearly be wrong to simply copy Marketwatch's summary word for word, if that's what it is - and that's what it appears to be. I'll raise the issue on Wikipedia:Copyright problems for someone more experienced to have a look and put a tag on the page, just to be safe. SilkTork *^YES! 11:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

But didn't MarketWatch simply copy it verbatim from the bill itself? Perhaps all we really ought to do is change the reference. --JaGa^talk 11:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It is definitely far shorter and the summary might be their own words. gren グレン 12:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

That's the part that's unclear. Wording from the actual bill on Homeowner assistance: "IN GENERAL.To the extent that the Federal property manager holds, owns, or controls mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate, including multifamily housing, the Federal property manager shall simplement a plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners and use its authority to encourage the servicers of the underlying mortgages, and considering net present value to the taxpayer, to take advantage of the HOPE for Homeowners Program under section 257 of the National Housing Act or other available programs to minimize foreclosures."[2]. Wording from marketwatch: "EESA requires the Treasury to modify troubled loans - many the result of predatory lending practices - wherever possible to help American families keep their homes. It also directs other federal agencies to modify loans that they own or control. Finally, it improves the HOPE for Homeowners program by expanding eligibility and increasing the tools available to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help more families keep their homes" [3]. it appears to me that there some language in the Marketwatch summary, which would not be governmental language - "predatory lending practices". But maybe that's acceptable language from an American government? SilkTork *^YES! 12:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If this were an official governmentally-produced summary, it would be reasonable to conclude that the text would be far shorter (that's what a summary is supposed to do, after all), and use of terms such as "predatory lending practices" wouldn't be too unlikely by politicians: after all, a summary wouldn't have legal authority, so the proponents of the bill could word their summary as they saw fit. Of course, if this were a privately-produced summary, the same could be done, but I don't think the language by itself can prove that it's privately produced. 63.172.28.121 (talk) 12:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

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Here is the government text that the Marketwatch article copied. The text is in the public domain as a work of the United States Government.

See SUMMARY OF THE “EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT OF 2008”: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/summary_of_the_eesa2.pdf Access to the page via the House Committee on Financial Services: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 13:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

voting

according to the site it says "Viewing the Govtrack.us statistics on this bill it should be noted that 15 House members did not vote on this bill. That is roughly 3% of the bill. To view how your Representative voted on this bill view the following link. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-671"

But here (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml) is on vote to the actual bill. The above 1517 was a vote to accept the senate version and discuss. (http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/lgwww_bill.pl?101517)

Here is the actual results: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml (only 1 did not vote) Lihaas (talk) 17:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Mark to Market

There should be some mention here of how the bill is impacted by a controversy over mark-to-market or "fair value" accounting. The SEC/FASB relationship and all that. Where should we put such a discussion? --Christofurio (talk) 13:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

• Proposed bailout of United States financial system is where allof the history and detail goes. This article is a mere placeholder untill the name change is agreed upon. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 15:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Claim by Brad Sherman, D-CA, that plan is covertly set up to bail out foreign banks, not US

On Kudlow & Company on Sept 30 Brad Sherman, D-California stated the following

“ The bill is very clear: Assets now held in China or London can be sold to U.S. entities on Monday and then sold to the Treasury on Tuesday. Paulson has made it very clear he would recommend a veto of any bill that cointained a clear provision that said 'if Americans didn't own the asset on September 20th that it can't be sold to Treasury.' Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to bail out foreign investors. They know it. They demanded it, and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen. ” — video

A discussion of the implications of this was presented the same night by Karl Denninger on YouTube[4]. Has there been any discussion of this in any of the Wikipedia articles related to the financial rescue plan? __meco (talk) 14:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Move warning

Following the recent house action, it has been proposed that this article be replaced with the text of Proposed bailout of the United States financial system. If you strongly object, now would be a good time to make that known. Ronnotel (talk) 19:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Just make sure this talk page gets merged into the other talk page. I don't want my post above to be lost in the shuffle. __meco (talk) 20:34, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done. Btw, I have saved the last version of the page here in case anyone wants to pull any text an incorporate in current article. Ronnotel (talk) 20:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)