....."Foreign Banks Hope Bailout Will Be Global"
"Foreign Banks Hope Bailout Will Be Global," see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22global.html. Part of the article is below.
"PARIS — The financial crisis that began in the United States spread to many corners of the globe. Now, the American bailout looks as if it is going global, too, a move that could raise its cost and intensify scrutiny by Congress and critics.
Foreign banks, which were initially excluded from the plan, lobbied successfully over the weekend to be able to sell the toxic American mortgage debt owned by their American units to the Treasury, getting the same treatment as United States banks.
On Sunday, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., indicated in a series of appearances on morning talk shows that an original proposal introduced on Saturday had been widened. “It’s a distinction without a difference whether it’s a foreign or a U.S. one,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
The prospect of being locked out of the bailout set off alarm bells among chief executives of overseas banks whose American affiliates also hold distressed mortgage-related assets, like Barclays and UBS. The original text provided access to the $700 billion bailout for any financial institution based in the United States.
As the day wore on, some raised their concerns with the Treasury Department, arguing that foreign institutions were both big employers and major players in the American capital markets. By Saturday evening, the language had been changed to allow any financial institution “having significant operations” in the United States.
While Mr. Paulson has agreed with that argument, the Bush administration is also leaning on foreign governments to pitch in with bailout programs of their own as needed. “We have a global financial system and we are talking very aggressively with other countries around the world, and encouraging them to do similar things, and I believe a number of them will,” Mr. Paulson said on Sunday.
The request is expected to be discussed during a conference call among Group of 7 finance ministries scheduled for Sunday evening, a European official said.
Allowing foreign banks to participate in the federal rescue package has not yet drawn widespread scrutiny in Congress, where a number of lawmakers, including Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, have acknowledged that millions of American citizens do business with UBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and many other foreign-based banks in the United States.
But a number of lawmakers are wary that such an extension may worsen what could ultimately turn out to be a trillion-dollar bailout for Wall Street.
“I’m skeptical of the bailout, the whole bill is only a couple of pages long,” said Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of New Jersey, who is a member of the House Financial Services Committee. As for the participation of foreign banks, Mr. Garrett said: “I have a concern with it, they probably should be treated differently, but Congress is really not getting any say.”
Christopher Whalen, a managing partner at Institutional Risk Analytics, said that Mr. Paulson needed to justify why a wider bailout was in the national interest.
“Can you imagine the Congress floating a bailout for Deutsche Bank or UBS? It is the responsibility of the German or Swiss government,” he said. “We shouldn’t be bailing them out.”
.......http://www.JoeFRocks.com/
NEM XAU HUI
"PARIS — The financial crisis that began in the United States spread to many corners of the globe. Now, the American bailout looks as if it is going global, too, a move that could raise its cost and intensify scrutiny by Congress and critics.
Foreign banks, which were initially excluded from the plan, lobbied successfully over the weekend to be able to sell the toxic American mortgage debt owned by their American units to the Treasury, getting the same treatment as United States banks.
On Sunday, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., indicated in a series of appearances on morning talk shows that an original proposal introduced on Saturday had been widened. “It’s a distinction without a difference whether it’s a foreign or a U.S. one,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
The prospect of being locked out of the bailout set off alarm bells among chief executives of overseas banks whose American affiliates also hold distressed mortgage-related assets, like Barclays and UBS. The original text provided access to the $700 billion bailout for any financial institution based in the United States.
As the day wore on, some raised their concerns with the Treasury Department, arguing that foreign institutions were both big employers and major players in the American capital markets. By Saturday evening, the language had been changed to allow any financial institution “having significant operations” in the United States.
While Mr. Paulson has agreed with that argument, the Bush administration is also leaning on foreign governments to pitch in with bailout programs of their own as needed. “We have a global financial system and we are talking very aggressively with other countries around the world, and encouraging them to do similar things, and I believe a number of them will,” Mr. Paulson said on Sunday.
The request is expected to be discussed during a conference call among Group of 7 finance ministries scheduled for Sunday evening, a European official said.
Allowing foreign banks to participate in the federal rescue package has not yet drawn widespread scrutiny in Congress, where a number of lawmakers, including Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, have acknowledged that millions of American citizens do business with UBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and many other foreign-based banks in the United States.
But a number of lawmakers are wary that such an extension may worsen what could ultimately turn out to be a trillion-dollar bailout for Wall Street.
“I’m skeptical of the bailout, the whole bill is only a couple of pages long,” said Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of New Jersey, who is a member of the House Financial Services Committee. As for the participation of foreign banks, Mr. Garrett said: “I have a concern with it, they probably should be treated differently, but Congress is really not getting any say.”
Christopher Whalen, a managing partner at Institutional Risk Analytics, said that Mr. Paulson needed to justify why a wider bailout was in the national interest.
“Can you imagine the Congress floating a bailout for Deutsche Bank or UBS? It is the responsibility of the German or Swiss government,” he said. “We shouldn’t be bailing them out.”
.......http://www.JoeFRocks.com/
NEM XAU HUI
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