Sarah Palin’s Troopergate Scandal Reveals Her Fundamentalist Street Cred

Anchorage Daily News and Election Confidential (blog). http://www.alternet.org/election08/99661/?page=entire

Shedding further light on Palin's pattern of advocating Christian right ideology and her ties to the movement.

Kopp Hiring Proved Palin's Fundamentalist Street Cred
by Alan Boraas, Anchorage Daily News
So far Gov. Palin's handling of Alaska's Troopergate has focused on why Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan was fired. An equally important question is why Chuck Kopp was hired to replace him.
On June 30, 2008, David Brody of CBS News reported John McCain met in North Carolina with Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, director of the multimillion-dollar Samaritan's Place faith-based charitable organization. McCain was courting the religious right who, at the time, were skeptical of his social conservatism and his Christian qualifications. After the meeting Graham issued a statement praising McCain's "personal faith" and added, "We had an opportunity to pray for God's will to be done in this upcoming election."
Subsequent events suggest that the price of support for McCain by the fundamentalist Christian leadership would be a vice presidential candidate of their liking. Gov. Palin was a logical choice for Franklin Graham, whose ties to Alaska include a palatial, by Bush Alaska standards, second home in Port Alsworth: a community that has often served as a retreat for Christian fundamentalist leaders.
But Gov. Palin did not promote a socially conservative agenda during her first two years as governor and some Alaska right-wing commentators called her an economic liberal. Send us a sign, national fundamentalist Christian leaders seemingly said, that proves your credentials. In firing Monegan and hiring Kopp, Palin would have gained a controversial measure of revenge in a family dispute and established her standing as a Christian conservative politician.
Kenai City Police Chief Chuck Kopp was a rising star in Alaska's Christian conservative movement. He was a frequent speaker at local religious and patriotic gatherings. He was school board president of Cook Inlet Academy, the fundamentalist Christian high school in Soldotna his missionary-educator father founded. Kopp also was on the board of Port Alsworth's Tanailan Bible Camp, also founded by his father.
Through Samaritan's Place, Franklin Graham has been the chief benefactor of the Tanailan Bible Camp building and rebuilding a church and meeting hall and guest cabins. The evangelical scion of Alaska, Rev. Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, is on Samaritan Purse's Board of Directors, so there's a clear connection between Graham, Prevo and Kopp.
Kopp's nomination quickly ran into trouble because of sexual harassment reprimands while Kenai police chief, but Palin's willingness to appoint him to a high state position along with her anti-abortion, pro-creationist beliefs seems to have solidified her position as the one to ignite the base for McCain. Kevin Merida reported in the Washington Post that when Palin met with the Alaska delegation after her nomination during the recent Republican National Convention, Rev. Prevo, a member of the delegation, said Palin asked them to pray for her. Then Prevo handed the governor his cell phone; it was Franklin Graham calling to congratulate her.
Palin's connection to what Jeff Sharlett has called "elite fundamentalism" is of interest now that she is an election and a heartbeat away from the presidency. Franklin Graham has been the keynote speaker for the Alaska Governor's Prayer Breakfast the past two years. According to their Web site, the organizers believe, "God directs the affairs of Man and is the ultimate authority over human events." The Alaska Governor's Prayer Breakfast is connected to the National Prayer Breakfast sponsored by The Fellowship Foundation, also known as "The Family," which espouses similar beliefs. The Family is headed by Doug Coe, one of the most influential evangelicals in Washington, D.C. Coe's group tends to operate behind the scenes organizing small cells attended by the power elite, mostly Republicans. George Bush was saved in such a cell while in Texas.
Elite fundamentalists believe, according to Sharlett, not only in religious determinism but that they are personally chosen by God to be in positions of power. By claiming divine legitimacy of their political power, elite fundamentalists relegate the opposition to being the devil's tool. They are making a frighteningly close return to the pre-enlightenment concept of rule by divine right, which our founding fathers rejected as anathema to democracy and established, instead, the separation of church and state lest decisions be made on the basis of good versus evil rather than wise versus unwise.
Whether or not Sarah Palin pandered to the Christian fundamentalist right on the back of a good man's career and believes she was chosen by God only she can say. Likewise, only John McCain can say whether he sold his political soul and selected the least prepared vice presidential candidate in United States history for the sake of political gain. The electorate deserves some answers.

Guess Who Filed Suit to Halt Troopergate
On September 16th ABC News reported, "A group of Alaska Republican lawmakers, with the support of a Texas-based conservative legal group, has filed suit to stop the Alaska Legislature's "Troopergate" probe into Gov. Sarah Palin." The ABC coverage was not untypical of mainstream media coverage generally and is not being singled out for scrutiny.
This "Texas-based conservative legal group" is generally referred to as LLI (Liberty Legal Institute). Their website, which is very open and honest, may be found here.
To describe the LLI as a "conservative legal group" is like describing O. J. Simpson as a "well-dressed African-American". Both are true, as far as they go.
LLI describes themselves as, "a 501(c)(3) organization that was founded in 1997 to protect religious freedoms and First Amendment rights for individuals, groups and churches." This self-description is from the front page of their website. The site also quickly makes clear that the First Amendment Rights they defend are those of the religious right. The banner of one page proudly displays this quote, "Group is the flip side to ACLU. [sic]" - Dallas Morning News
A quick click on the "Cases" tab reveals 14 cases under the headline of "Recent Cases". Briefly looking through the summaries, 11 are plainly related to religion. In the other three cases a connection to religion is unclear. One has to do with a high school student's political tee shirt, one has to do with a political contribution and one has to do with the wording on a town monument. All case were based in Texas.
The question the list raises is what interest does this firm have in the firing of a Police Commissioner in Alaska? Nothing in their past or in their charter shows an interest in such cases. They have no offices outside the state of Texas and work only pro bono cases related to civil liberties.

Enter the Arlington Group.
LLI is a member of the 75-member "Arlington Group", a Washington-based, religious-right consortium which seeks to influence government policy on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. The Arlington group was founded in 2002 through the joint effort of powerful members of the religious right including Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Chuck Colson, D. James Kennedy, Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley.
The groups first director was James Dobson. Although very influential then and now, the Arlington Group famously stubbed it's toe when they threatened, in 2005, to oppose President George W. Bush's Social Security Reforms if he did not come out strongly against same-sex marriage. The media was angered and the compliance of the Bush administration failed to stem the tide of same-sex marriage legislation.
The Arlington Group effectively limits its self to what its members agree on. Pooled resources go toward the election and appointment of judges with anti-abortion and anti-same-sex marriage records. The group does discuss the possibility of getting behind a particular candidate, but it is not necessary that they agree. They are very effectively tied into a couple of very narrowly defined issues with which all members totally agree. The election of politicians is basically a means to the end of those politicians appointing judges who share their agenda.
So why is the LLI in Anchorage using words like "McCarthyism" to halt a bipartisan investigation of the Alaskan State Legislature into the Governor of that State? Here are a few possibilities:
• It really is McCarthyism. The Alaskan Legislature wants to prove that Governor Palin is a communist plant for the now defunct Soviet Union.
• The LLI believes that for a State Legislature to investigate the firing of a Commissioner by a Governor impinges upon the Governor's right to the religious expression required in such a firing.
• The LLI believes there are no competent attorneys in Alaska, the RNC or any of the considerable number of states separating Texas and Alaska to help the embattled Governor.
• The LLI believes that fired commissioner Walt Monegan and the State Senator heading the investigation, Hollis French are betrothed.
• The LLI wants to pervert justice to perpetuate the strongest anti-abortion candidate ever. A candidate bold enough to strike rape kits from her city's budget because they contain emergency contraception (the equivalent to a "morning after pill").
• Wouldn't it be a shame to find out that they are doing all of this based on number four, only to find out later that Monegan and French were divorced a year ago?
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Need a Job? $17,000 an Hour. No Success Required.

Are you capable of taking a perfectly good 158-year-old company and turning it into dust? If so, then you may not be earning up to your full potential. You should be raking it in like Richard Fuld, the longtime chief of Lehman Brothers. He took home nearly half-a-billion dollars in total compensation between 1993 and 2007.
Last year, Mr. Fuld earned about $45 million, according to the calculations of Equilar, an executive pay research company. That amounts to roughly $17,000 an hour to obliterate a firm. If you’re willing to drive a company into the ground for less, apply by calling Lehman Brothers at (212) 526-7000.
Oh, never mind.
I’m delighted to announce that Mr. Fuld (who continues to lead Lehman since it entered bankruptcy proceedings this week) is the winner of my annual Michael Eisner Award for corporate rapacity and poor corporate governance. The award honors the pioneering achievements in this field of Mr. Eisner, the former Walt Disney chief.
This isn’t a plaque that will simply gather dust in a closet. It’s a shower curtain to commemorate the $6,000 one that the former C.E.O. of Tyco purchased and billed to his shareholders.
So, Mr. Fuld, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve picked out a lovely green vinyl number for you. Only $14.99! Why, I saved you $5,985!
Perhaps it seems frivolous to be handing out shower curtains to chief executives when we’re caught in a deepening economic crisis. Well, it is.
But one of our broad national problems is rising inequality, and it is exacerbated by corporate executives helping themselves to shareholders’ cash. Three decades ago, C.E.O.’s typically earned 30 to 40 times the income of ordinary workers. Last year, C.E.O.’s of large public companies averaged 344 times the average pay of workers.
John McCain seems to think that the problem is that C.E.O.’s are greedy. Well, of course, they are. We’re all greedy. The real failure is one of corporate governance, which provides only the flimsiest oversight to curb the greed of executives like Mr. Fuld.
“Compare the massive destruction of wealth for shareholders to what he gets at the end of the day,” said Lucian Bebchuk, the director of the corporate governance program at Harvard Law School. A central flaw of governance is that boards of directors frequently are ornamental and provide negligible oversight.
As Warren Buffett has said, “in judging whether corporate America is serious about reforming itself, C.E.O. pay remains the acid test.” It’s a test that corporate America is failing.
These Brobdingnagian paychecks are partly the result of taxpayer subsidies. A study released a few weeks ago by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington found five major elements in the tax code that encourage overpaying executives. These cost taxpayers more than $20 billion a year.
That’s enough money to deworm every child in the world, cut maternal mortality around the globe by two-thirds and also provide iodized salt to prevent tens of millions of children from suffering mild retardation or worse. Alternatively, it could pay for health care for most uninsured children in America.
Do we truly believe that C.E.O.’s like Mr. Fuld are more deserving of tax dollars than sick children?
Perhaps it’s understandable that C.E.O.’s are paid heroically when they succeed, but why pay prodigious sums when they fail? E. Stanley O’Neal, the former chief of Merrill Lynch, retired last year after driving the firm over a cliff, and he walked away with $161 million.
The problem isn’t precisely paychecks that are huge. Baseball stars, investment bankers and hedge fund managers all earn obscene sums, but honestly — through arm’s-length transactions. You and I may gasp, but that’s the free market at work.
In contrast, boards pay C.E.O.’s after negotiations that are often more like pillow talk. Relationships are incestuous, and compensation consultants provide only a thin veneer of respectability by finding some “peer group” of companies so moribund that anybody shines in comparison. The result is what critics call the Lake Wobegon effect, which miraculously leaves all C.E.O.’s above average. Indeed, one study of 1,500 companies found that two-thirds claimed to be outperforming their peer groups.
John Kenneth Galbraith, the great economist, once explained: “The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.”
There are widely discussed technical solutions to C.E.O.’s overpaying themselves that we should move toward. We can also learn from Britain and Australia, which offer shareholders more rights than in America, redrawing the balance between shareholders and management and curbing pay in the process.
As for Mr. Fuld, unfortunately, he had no comment for this column. At $17,000 an hour, it probably wasn’t worth his time.

Obama and McCain Offer Two Different Versions of Taxes

Make more than $250,000 a year? Watch out. Barack Obama wants to raise your income taxes. Social Security taxes, too.

Run a corporation? Lucky you. John McCain wants to cut your business taxes.

Those positions illustrate pieces of two vastly different approaches to the economy, an issue at the forefront of voters' minds given that the country is teetering on the brink of -- if not already in -- a recession as gas prices soar and layoffs rise amid a credit crisis and a housing slump.
Obama, the Democrat, seemingly has a traditional liberal outlook of taxing the rich more while having the government help people of more modest means through tax breaks. McCain, the Republican, advocates a classic conservative vision of cutting taxes -- many geared toward businesses -- to promote competition within a free-market system.

Neither plan is cheap.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, gives a preliminary estimate that over the next decade, McCain's tax proposals would reduce federal revenues $3.7 trillion while Obama's cuts would amount to $2.7 trillion.
The center said the cuts would slice roughly 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively, of the federal revenues scheduled for collection under current law. But the center's estimate -- seemingly the first nonpartisan comprehensive comparison of the plans -- is incomplete because it doesn't account for health care tax proposals or, at least in McCain's case, consider how proposals to slash spending would offset some costs.
A crusader against wasteful spending, McCain asserts that he will veto bills that are too costly and cut the federal budget enough to make up for the costs of tax cuts and other proposals, although he has yet to show he can save enough to do it. At the same time, the Republican says that Congress must continue to fund an Iraq war that already has cost more than $500 billion.
Obama, in turn, has proposed billions of dollars in spending to create jobs and pad government programs aimed at helping the less fortunate. He has said that the money will come from ending the Iraq war, slicing tax breaks for corporations, and raising taxes on high-income earners, efforts he says are intended to shift more of the tax burden to wealthy Americans.
The two candidates have been haggling over the economy for more than a week now and seem to agree only on one point when it comes to it -- that they disagree on just about every other point.

"On tax policy, health care reform, trade, government spending, and a long list of other issues, we offer very different choices to the American people," McCain says at every turn.
Concurs Obama: "When it comes to the economy, John McCain and I have a fundamentally different vision of where to take the country."

Major changes to the tax code are at the heart of both candidates' sweeping economic plans, given that most cuts enacted since President Bush took office expire at the end of 2010 and the alternative minimum tax (AMT) is poised to hit much of the middle class -- two years into the next president's first term.
In 2001 and 2003 to jump-start a lackluster economy, Bush proposed and Congress passed a series of tax cuts -- including rate cuts for most taxpayers, increasing to $1,000 the per-child tax credit, relief from the so-called marriage penalty and estate tax cuts. The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure the wealthy paid at least some tax, but it now also threatens about 20 million additional taxpayers -- many in the middle class -- with levies averaging $2,000 if Congress doesn't annually renew a so-called patch to fix the problem.
Making permanent Bush's tax cuts and making sure the AMT keeps pace with inflation would have a direct cost of $3.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office estimates, with government borrowing costs rising more than $800 million over the same period.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, twice voted against Bush's tax cuts, probably the significant domestic accomplishment of his presidency, but now embraces them and wants to permanently extend them for low-income and high-income people alike. He also long has said he would eliminate the AMT, and while some middle-income taxpayers would benefit, so would the wealthy, who no longer would have to pay it.

Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, wasn't in the Senate when they first passed, but he's willing to go along with permanently extending them except for their chief beneficiaries, the rich. Those who make more than $250,000 a year would see their taxes increase; Bush's tax cuts for them would be rolled back. Obama would extend and index the current AMT patch.

In the vein of taxing the rich more, Obama also supports making some higher wage-earners pay Social Security taxes on more of their income. He has called for higher payroll taxes on wage-earners making more than $250,000 annually, a step that would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans.
The 6.2 percent payroll tax is now applied to all wages up to $102,000 a year, which covers the entire amount for most Americans. Under Obama's plan, the tax would not apply to wages between that amount and $250,000. But Obama has said all annual salaries above the quarter-million-dollar amount would be taxed under his plan.
Conversely, McCain has ruled out higher payroll taxes for now -- an adviser says that McCain would not consider an increase "under any imaginable circumstance" -- but the Republican has said he would consider "almost anything" as part of a compromise to save the senior citizens' program.
Both want to slice the estate tax, McCain more so than Obama.
The estate tax is phasing out and is completely eliminated for 2010, but it snaps back to 2001 levels -- a 55 percent top rate with the first $675,000 exempt -- at the end of that year. McCain wants a 15 percent rate, and a $5 million exemption, while Obama advocates a 45 percent rate and a $3.5 million exemption.
Overall, the Tax Policy Center said people with very high incomes would benefit the most under McCain's proposal, while low- and middle-income taxpayers would see larger tax breaks under Obama's plan and wealthy taxpayers would see their taxes increase.
Seeking to spur growth, McCain proposes cutting the maximum corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, and he would allow businesses to immediately deduct the full cost of capital business equipment in one swoop, instead of gradually over several years.
McCain also wants to increase the $3,500 income-tax exemption for dependents by $500 each year beginning in 2010 until it reaches $7,000.
Among Obama's other proposals: raising the tax on capital gains and qualified dividends. However, Obama has raised the possibility of deferring some of his tax hikes on the wealthy given the ailing economy.
To help others, Obama has offered a series of tax breaks, including eliminating the income tax for senior citizens who make less than $50,000 a year and giving a $1,000 income tax credit for families with income of between $8,000 and $75,000; individuals would receive half that amount. Obama also proposes a universal mortgage credit that would allow people who don't itemize their taxes to be eligible for a 10 percent tax credit of their mortgage interest up to $800.

Wall Street became a $700 billion Rescue Plan. But Will It Work?

As the federal government steps to the center of the financial crisis, devising plans to take ownership of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of bad mortgages, a pair of simple questions rise to the fore: Will this intervention finally be enough to restore order? And what will this grand rescue cost taxpayers?
The Treasury Department, as overseer of the financial system, has in recent weeks unleashed a vast array of initiatives in a bid to stave off catastrophe. It took over the country’s largest mortgage finance companies and put untold billions of taxpayer dollars on the line to prop up other lenders.
Now, although the details are still being worked out, the government is dispensing with rescuing one company at a time, and instead is taking on a vast pile of bad debt in one gulp.
If it all comes to pass — if Uncle Sam becomes the repository for the radioactive leftovers of bad real estate bets — will the crisis lift? Will the fear that has kept banks clinging to their dollars, starving the economy of capital, give way to free-flowing credit?
Most broadly, what are the long-term costs of the government’s stepping in to restore order after so many wealthy financiers became so much wealthier through what now seem like reckless bets on housing — bets now covered with public dollars?
Some question the prudence of adding to the nation’s overall debt at a time when the Treasury relies on the largess of foreigners to cover the bills. Even so, there is wide agreement that a broad intervention like the one Treasury is proposing is necessary.
“It goes a long way; it ameliorates it very substantially,” said Alan S. Blinder, an economist at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the board of governors at the Federal Reserve, who has said for months that the government must step in forcefully to buy mortgage-linked investments.
“We’re deep into Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole,” Mr. Blinder said.
But significant skepticism confronts the plan. Under a proposal circulating Saturday, the Treasury could spend as much as $700 billion to buy mortgage-linked investments, then sell what it can as it works out the messy details of the loans. But no one really knows what this cosmically complex web of finance will be worth, making the final price tag for the taxpayer unknowable. One may just as well try to predict the weather three years from Tuesday.
Also, what message does that send to the next investment bank caught up in the next speculative bubble and contemplating the risks of jumping in while wondering who is ultimately on the hook if things go awry?
Many economists say such questions are beside the point. The nation is gripped by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Before Thursday night, when the Treasury secretary, the Federal Reserve chairman and leaders on Capitol Hill proclaimed their intentions to take over bad debts, the prognosis for the American financial system was sliding from grim toward potentially apocalyptic.
“It looked like we might be falling into the abyss,” Mr. Blinder said.
As the details of the government’s plans are hashed out, no hallelujah chorus is wafting across Washington, down Wall Street or through the glistening condominiums of the nation. Too many households are having trouble paying their mortgages. Too many people are out of work. Too many banks are bloodied.
Still, the prospect that the government is preparing to wade in deep — perhaps sparing families from foreclosure and banks from insolvency — has muted talk of the most dire possibilities: a severe shortage of credit that would crimp the availability of finance for many years, effectively halting economic growth.
“The risk of ending up like Japan, with 10 years of stagnation, is now much lessened,” said Nouriel Roubini, an economist at the Stern School of Business at New York University. “The recession train has left the station, but it’s going to be 18 months instead of five years.”

If the plan works, it will attack the central cause of American economic distress: the continued plunge in housing prices. If banks resumed lending more liberally, mortgages would become more readily available. That would give more people the wherewithal to buy homes, lifting housing prices or at least preventing them from falling further. This would prevent more mortgage-linked investments from going bad, further easing the strain on banks. As a result, the current downward spiral would end and start heading up.
“It’s easy to forget amid all the fancy stuff — credit derivatives, swaps — that the root cause of all this is declining house prices,” Mr. Blinder said. “If you can reverse that, then people start coming out of their foxholes and start putting their money in places they have been too afraid to put it.”
For many Americans, the events that have transfixed and horrified Wall Street in recent days — the disintegration of supposedly impregnable institutions, government bailouts with 11-figure price tags — have been less stunning than inscrutable. The headlines proclaim that the taxpayer now owns the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the liabilities of a mysterious colossus called the American Insurance Group, which, as it happens, insures against corporate defaults. Much like the human appendix, these were organs whose existence was only dimly evident to many until the pain began.
Yet these institutions are deeply intertwined with the American economy. When the financial system is in danger, it stops investing and lending, depriving people of financing for homes, cars and education. Businesses cannot borrow to start up and expand.
“Wall Street isn’t this island to itself,” said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute. “Even people with good credit histories are having a very hard time getting loans at terms that make sense. If that gets worse, we’re going to be stuck in the doldrums for a very long time, because that directly blocks healthy economic activity.”
The financial crisis gripping the United States is the direct outgrowth of the speculative orgy in real estate that began early this decade. Once home values began falling two years ago, the financial institutions that had poured capital into real estate confronted a very big problem.
Over the last year, one financial giant after another has written off billions of dollars worth of mortgage-linked investments. Some have succumbed to the storm. In March, the investment bank Bear Stearns nearly collapsed before JPMorgan Chase bought it at a fire-sale price. This month, the government effectively nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — government-backed mortgage companies that together guarantee $5 trillion in American mortgages.
Last week, Merrill Lynch — a name synonymous with Wall Street — found itself forced to pawn itself off to Bank of America. Lehman Brothers, an investment banking giant, collapsed into bankruptcy. Worries now hover over other banks.
“It may not be over,” said Mr. Blinder, the former Fed vice chairman.
Some say the tightening of credit is an unavoidable corrective. For a quarter-century, the American economy has gorged itself on borrowed money, from the speculative investments that created the dot-com boom to the exuberant borrowing that made houses in Las Vegas trade like technology stocks.
“Credit was too easy for too long, and now it’s a little tighter,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a necessary though painful correction.”
Others say that in the last few weeks, the profligate era of easy money had swung to the opposite extreme: a widespread reluctance to lend.
“The danger is swinging from far too risk-friendly to far too risk-averse,” Mr. Bernstein said.
The economy has shed roughly 600,000 jobs since the beginning of the year. If healthy companies cannot get their hands on financing, they will not be able to expand and hire.
“What we’re looking at now is simply an amplified version of what we’ve been in since last August,” Mr. Bernstein added. “You’re witnessing a sudden death instead of a slow bleed.”
The impact of the pullback among banks was evident in the interest rates banks pay other banks to borrow money short-term. Traditionally, banks charge one another a little more than 0.2 percentage point over the rate on the safest investment, United States Treasury bills. But on Friday that spread was more than two percentage points, meaning a bank must pay an enormous premium to persuade another to part with its money.
And still no one knows the extent of the carnage. The financial system has acknowledged roughly $400 billion in losses so far, Mr. Roubini estimates, yet as much as another $1.1 trillion may be lying in wait.
As the government steps in to take over bad debts, it is aiming to clear away the detritus and lift the uncertainty, emboldening banks to lend anew. Whether it will work in the long term is a question that awaits reaction from investors. But even the most skeptical economists say this is the path the government must take for confidence to crystallize that a genuine fix is under way.
“It’s not enough,” Mr. Roubini said. “But it’s the first time they have done something that makes a difference.”