US presidential candidates senators Barack Obama and John McCain worked to cool the partisan heat of the financial crisis, with both calling for Congress to regroup and act quickly to prevent a feared financial collapse and foster confidence in the banking system.
McCain and Obama are under pressure to reassure voters that they can prevent an economic meltdown of a kind unseen since Franklin D. Roosevelt was voted into the White House in the depths of the 1930s Great Depression.
McCain, Obama and Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, signaled plans to return to Washington for the vote last night on a revised bailout plan.
PHOTO: AFP
Republican McCain and Democrat Obama both said on Tuesday that politicians needed to set aside politics to save the financial system. Together, they backed a call to raise the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) guarantee on bank accounts from a limit of US$100,000 to US$250,000 — a proposal later incorporated into the Senate version of the financial rescue plan.
FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair took up the proposal on Tuesday afternoon, asking Congress for authority for an unspecified increase in insurance limits. She said most banks remained sound, but contended that increasing the insurance cap would help ease the crisis of confidence.
Obama warned it would be “catastrophic” if a deal were not reached soon and that Congress should build on the bill it rejected on Monday rather than start from scratch.
“Given the progress we have made, I believe we are unlikely to succeed if we start from scratch or reopen negotiations about the core elements of the agreement,” Obama said in a statement. “But in order to pass this plan, we must do more.”
McCain, whose own Republicans were largely responsible for sinking the bill, said that lawmakers had failed to convince voters that the deal was urgent.
Both said the time for blame had passed and action was needed urgently.
Obama told about 12,000 people at a rally at the University of Nevada at Reno that the crisis “affects the financial well-being of every single American. There will be time to punish those who set this fire, but now is the moment for us to come together and put the fire out.”
McCain concurred in an interview on the cable television station MSNBC.
“So we’ve got to act and we’ve got to act — and I’m confident we will — we will pass legislation because we have to do it. And that’s — the important thing now is bipartisanship. Sit down and work together. That’s what I want to do and that’s what I’m committed to do,” McCain said.
McCain said he recommended to Bush on Tuesday morning that the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund of US$250 billion be used to shore up institutions and that the Treasury exercise its ability to buy up US$1 trillion in mortgages.
“Housing and mortgages are at the root of this crisis,” the Republican senator said later at a small business round-table in Des Moines, Iowa. “I urge Treasury to take action to shore up mortgage values.”
Obama said he, too, had talked with Bush as well as Senate Majority Leader Reid and other leaders on Tuesday about resurrecting the recovery plan. He also sought to reassure the public, saying the plan had been “misunderstood and poorly communicated.”
“This is not a plan to just hand over US$700 billion of your money to a few banks on Wall Street,” Obama told supporters at the Nevada rally.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
CONSOLIDATION: The Indonesian president has used the moment to replace figures from former president Jokowi’s tenure with loyal allies In removing Indonesia’s finance minister and U-turning on protester demands, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is scrambling to restore public trust while seizing a chance to install loyalists after deadly riots last month, experts say. Demonstrations that were sparked by low wages, unemployment and anger over lawmakers’ lavish perks grew after footage spread of a paramilitary police vehicle running over a delivery motorcycle driver. The ensuing riots, which rights groups say left at least 10 dead and hundreds detained, were the biggest of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s term, and the ex-general is now calling on the public to restore their
RSS