DiFi is having a change of heart…

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, said she is re-evaluating her support for retroactive legal immunity. She voted to approve it as part of the Intelligence Committee bill.

“I did support [immunity] in the intel bill and I’m giving it further thought,” she said.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._1108.html

Right, AT%T, et al. better cut a check and deliver to her office pronto via special messenger.

The Short view: Crisis widens

After a horrible afternoon on Wall Street, it is time to look up some definitions. A “correction” occurs when a market falls 10 per cent. The S&P Financials index did that in the last week alone. A “bear market” starts once an index falls 20 per cent; and the S&P financials index has done that since February.

Fears rise over spectre of ‘earnings recession’

Wall Street analysts are rapidly losing faith in US companies’ ability to rekindle profit growth before the end of the year, raising the prospect of the first “earnings recession” – two consecutive quarters of falling profits – in more than five years.

Is this the swan song for growth?

Lower earnings in the energy sector, fragile consumer confidence ahead of the retail holiday season and profit warnings from industrial groups like Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) , which last month rattled the market with its prediction that the US is “near to, or even in, recession”, contributed to Wall Street’s sour mood.

Politics aside, folks don’t have alot of confidence in the future…

The gig is up. The Fed’s repeated intervention is having a diminishing effect, and the media’s consistent denial is becoming less and less believable. The economy is in very bad shape, and by any honest assessment is already in recession. Understating inflation to produce the facade of economic growth only delays, and exasperates the inevitable.

Why go short?

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones by a ratio of about 10 to 1 on the NYSE, and by about 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. Oil prices are flirting with $100 as war propagandists are employing scare tactics once again, and urging the Bush administration to attack Iran. Has Iraq really taught us nothing?

No rush, things should keep unraveling for a while..

Joe Klein’s conscience @ 102

Has she said anything about retiring in 2012? I wonder if people out in CA are making serious noises about primarying her in 2012.

Don’t know how much I can say, but for all the SoCal firepups

There is an Executive Board meeting of the CDP in Anaheim in a week and a half and there will be a (vigorous?) debate on DiFi’s recent actions

If you can go I would encourage you to be there and speak your peace as a California Democrat as to how you feel about her recent votes

(This may be why she’s having second thoughts on telecom immunity. And yes, her offices and phone lines are, and have been very busy)

New location!

It is now at the Sheraton Park Hotel at the Anaheim Resort

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..d-buyouts/

There’s a limit to that collapse, because the Europeans especially do not want to see their major market shut down because of the high Euro. But to keep it from flying higher, they will have to accept American inflation if and when (as is likely) it comes.

Bernanke is not a hack. I shudder to think what things would have been like if Mankiew or Glenn Hubbard had been named head of the Fed. They are good economists by the conventional standards, but both of them tossed those standards out the window when they served the Administration and defended its disastrous fiscal policy (among others). Bernanke had to brown up his nose for a few months, but it’s a lot cleaner. The bottom line is that he is not likely to bale out the thugs by pumping money into the economy that it can’t absorb. That might just prevent the worst, because if he pumps, you can expect two things: more dollar decline, and higher interest rates as investors start projecting a future inflation.

As I said in the post above, it’s a perfect storm. The public haven’t the faintest idea how bad it can get.

1. the Chinese central bankers are not going to be trying to sell off all their dollar, but they will be selling more of the ones they already have, and keeping fewer of those coming in from current trade.

2. as Dean’s first point implies, the effects of the fall are partly self-limiting, although it could take a while, and be painful to anyone whose fortunes depend on buying imported materials or travelling abroad, because eventually the dollar will look like an appreciatiing asset.

The dollar falling is not great news, but I think the credit market (it’s not just mortgages, though the agony there is still far from its crest), food, and workplace safety problems are much more important economically and will be much more difficult to manage, because they all stem from the same destruction of regulatory and supervisory capacity that we have come to know so well from the republicans since the Reagan era.

perris @ 130

I’m pretty sure the fed is just creating more liquidity (printing free paper) and insisting it be invested in the market

no link but that’s my assessment

I agree but who is doing the investing?

The Fed is printing plenty of money, about 50% more than last year.

The money is injected into the banking system is exchange for worthless unmarketable paper.

Cheney resigns “for health reasons” and Crawford’s idiot nominates Al Gore for Veep (nothing in current law says the VP has to be from the Prez’s political party)…