Mike Turner joined 132 other Republican Representatives today and voted “No” on approving the $700 Billion Bailout.  The bill failed by a vote of 205 Yes to 228 No.  Altogether, 65 Republicans voted “Yes,” and 133 Republicans voted “No,” while 140 Democrats voted “Yes” and 95 Democrats voted “No.”

John Boehner, House Republican Leader, blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the defeat of the bill saying that her speech was so partisan that it caused some Republican congressman, who otherwise would have supported the vote, to vote “No.”

This is what Pelosi said in her speech:  “It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration’s failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.”

Here is how Ohio’s Representatives voted (from Slate):

There’s an old song that warns about nuclear destruction that says, “Brother, when Einstein gets worried, you’d better get worried.”

It has been proven lately, that if the economics professor Nouriel Roubini, “Dr. Doom,” is worried we should also be worried. Today, Roubini has comments on his web-site that shows he is very worried.  His comments are alarming.  Excerpts:

• It is obvious that the current financial crisis is becoming more severe …
• This is not just a US financial crisis; it is a global financial crisis hitting institutions in the US, UK, Eurozone and other advanced economies (Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.).
• In a solvency crisis and credit crisis that goes well beyond illiquidity no one is lending to counterparties as no one trusts any counterparty (even the safest ones) and everyone is hoarding the liquidity that is injected by central banks.
• Both institutions (Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) are highly recommended to stop dithering and playing for time as delay will be destructive: they should merge now with a large foreign financial institution as no US institution is sound enough and large enough to be a sound merger partner.
• When investors don’t trust any more even venerable institutions such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs you know that the financial crisis is as severe as ever and the fear of collapse of counterparties does not spare anyone. When a nuclear option of a monster $700 billion rescue plan is not even able to rally stock markets (as they are all in free fall today) you know this is a global crisis of confidence in the financial system.
• There is a generalized loss of confidence in financial markets and in financial institutions that no policy action seem to be able to control.
• The next step of this panic could become the mother of all bank runs, i.e. a run on the trillion dollar plus of the cross border short-term interbank liabilities of the US banking and financial system as foreign banks as starting to worry about the safety of their liquid exposures to US financial institutions;
• We are thus now in a generalized panic mode and back to the risk of a systemic meltdown of the entire financial system. And US and foreign policy authorities seem to be clueless about what needs to be done next.